Pokemon: A Journey of Hope
by The Treecko Man
Summary: Reid had no job, no money, and no family, but that all changed when he found a deathly sick Treecko. Now with a new goal in mind and a glance at a future more promising than the fast food industry, Reid has the chance to become a somebody. Together with his long time friend Cami and his new friend Wally, they'll travel Hoenn in search of a better life. They're on a Journey of Hope.
1. Chapter 1

A Journey of Hope

Chapter 1

"Just another shit filled day. Honestly what else was I expecting," Reid York, the sixteen year old busboy thought to himself, as he looked himself over in the restaurant's bathroom. It was a disgusting mess, with urine stains on the toilet, tiled floor, and even the barf green painted walls. Looking at himself, he frowned in disgust. His black hair felt sweaty and greasy after a long shift, his slightly tanned face had pimples dotted here and there, and his brown eyes seemed to be the exact color as the crap in the unflushed toilet. Glancing down, he did his best to look over his physique, which proved challenging while wearing an apron. Even though he wasn't fat by any means, even having a more muscular build, he couldn't help but feel uncomfortable with himself.

As he walked out of the bathroom, he headed back to the kitchen area of the restaurant he worked at, which specialized in barbecue style food. Going over to the apron rack, he removed his and placed it alongside the dozens of other aprons that were there. Finally, with one last grudge, he took his ticket and clocked himself out. Having finished working for the past ten hours, he let out a loud sigh of relief as he cracked his neck.

"I'm headed off Mr. Knous!" Reid yelled out trying to sound chipper as he headed for the front door, not to piss off his boss. "See you on Monday!"

"Listen Reid," Mr. Knous shouted from his back office, "I know tomorrow's your day off but I'm going to need you to come in early to help out!"

Reid let out a sigh of defeat, knowing that there was no way around this if he wanted to keep his job. "Oh yeah sure thing Mr. Knous! Not a problem for me at all!" Reid shouted out trying to sound just as chipper as he had before, even though he felt like he could punch a wall at that moment.

"Alright then. Now get out of my store before I throw you out myself!"

"Freakin' dick…" Reid mumbled as he walked out the front door of the restaurant into the darkness of the night. He glanced at his watch, looking to see how much overtime he'd actually gotten, not having bothered to look at the clocks inside the restaurant. His eyes popped open when he saw it was 10:18 at night.

"God, another night wasted in this trash heap," He mumbled out loud as he proceeded towards the sidewalk that took him to his apartment that he had rented in the Oldale town suburbs.

Walking at a slow, yet steady pace he found himself thinking back about how he looked. Thinking about all of the flaws that stuck out on his bland personality made him sulk even more as he trudged on his way back home. Even thinking about home made him even more depressed. He lived by himself in a single bedroom apartment that had bug types crawling around in the walls. Thinking back to when he'd actually lived with his mother actually made him slightly better about living by himself. His mother had been drunk most of the time and she'd beaten him on a regular basis. Since his mother didn't work either, they both had to live off of the wages he was making at the restaurant he worked at. Any food that didn't require a microwave to cook was a luxury to them and owning a pokemon of his own was certainly out of the question.

Those days were passed through. Reid was happy about the fact that he was an independant person at the age of sixteen. Even if he'd had to drop out of school to be able to support himself, he didn't have all that many regrets about his living decisions. The one thing he missed about not being in school though was the fact that he didn't see his best friend Cami as often. Even though they lived in the same apartment building, Reid's schedule and her's simply didn't match.

After he had been walking for a few minutes, Reid stopped inside of a convenience store and picked up a can of soda. After paying the guy at the counter two ref for the drink, he walked back out and continued on his way back home, taking in the usual sights of the path that he used to take home. It was a path that cut through the edge of the forest that was between Petalburg city and Oldale town. Even though he knew it was dangerous to go into the woods without a pokemon, especially at night, he liked to connect with nature, even if some nature wanted to use his intestines as jump ropes. Plus it saved him another twenty minutes of walking.

Glancing into the sky as he strolled along, he saw that the moon was full. Seeing as how he'd been walking around the forest with how well illuminated it was, he was surprised he hadn't noticed it earlier. Just as he was about to lose himself in his own thoughts again, an eerie sound caught him off guard.

"Eeeekooooo"

Even with all of the other pokemon shouting out their cries, (being in a forest) this one stuck out to Reid more than the chirps of taillow and hoots of noctowl. It sounded more as if it was the sound of something suffering. As Reid walked further up the path, the sound of the groans only grew louder. He was starting to worry for whatever was out there because it sounded as if it was in a lot of pain. That's when he noticed what was making the sound. In the middle of the path lay a treecko, shaking in fetal position with cries of pain echoing through the forest. Diving into action, reid ran towards the small grass lizard. When he reached it he knew immediately that something was wrong with it.

"Hey," Reid called out to the treecko just a few feet away from him. "Are you okay?" The treecko didn't respond. Instead it just continued to shake on the ground in an uncontrollable manner.

Reid was finally within touching distance. He put his arm out slowly to signify that he wasn't going to hurt it. The treecko kept on its shaking as if Reid didn't even exist. Taking a deep breath, Reid reached out and lightly placed his hand on the treecko's head. He suddenly pulled it back though when he realized just how hot its head was. It was burning up with a temperature. Even not having a degree in pokemon medicine, he knew that a grass type wasn't supposed to be that hot. He had a feeling that if he didn't do something for the little grass type, that it was going to die.

"God, why do I have to be such an empathist," he complained as he scooped the treecko into his arms. He was surprised with just how lite the creature was. Even though the creature was two feet tall, it felt like it weighed only ten pounds or so. Refocusing on the treecko that was now shaking in his arms, he turned around and began to sprint as fast as he could towards the town's only pokemon center.

* * *

Cami was sitting behind the counter of the Pokemon center, bored as she ever was. Her long, blonde hair falling infront green eyes once again as it had been all night. Looking around the lobby of the pokemon center, which was barren, let out a depressed sigh. She'd recently gotten an internship at the pokemon center. At first, she thought it'd be great. She'd be able to help out with some of the care and treatment that happened in the medical area, maybe even help patch up some pokemon. Even if it was something as small as a papercut, she'd wanted to be on the front lines of medicine. _Instead_ , Cami was working as a replacement receptionist while the original receptionist was on vacation in the orange islands…

"Freakin' dick…" She mumbled to herself, angered that she had to take up this kind of this late at night. She looked up at the electric clock that sat on the counter in front of her. She sighed when she saw that the time was 10: 42 at night. She let out another sigh as she finally buried her face in her hands.

There was a chime as the automatic doors opened to the pokemon center, which were followed with the loud thomping of tennis shoes against the tile flooring of the center.

Cami groaned even louder as she let her head hit the countertop. "Excuse me, please no running inside the building. If it's an emergency then please…"

"This treecko is going to die if you don't help it right now!" a voice boomed, catching Cami off guard. She shot back up, almost afraid to look at who whoever was sounding so desperate. She was surprised when she saw her best friend staring back at her.

"Reid?!" She yelled almost falling out of her chair. "Wait what are you…"

"No time to explain, just get this treecko help now before it dies!" Reid shouted towards Cami in such a state of panic that he'd hardly realized it was her he was talking to.

"Uhh right," Cami darted around looking for the attention button she was only supposed to when in a life or death situation. Quickly finding it, she pressed it.

Being the first time she'd had to press it, she jumped when a loud siren and red lights spinning all over the place. It was only a moment later that a woman dressed in scrubs along with a Mr. Mime ran out with a stretcher towards Reid. Immediately ripping the treecko from his arms and placing it on the stretcher, the ran to the back room and straight into the medical wing. The sirens stopped, leaving Reid and Cami with blank expressions, both confused as to what had just occurred. Cami noticed something pop up on her laptop that she was supplied by the pokemon center. It had a red outline and had only three words written in bold in it; **disease stage 4**.

"Wait, what just happened?" Reid asked looking in all directions of the lobby. "Is that treecko okay? Do you know what's wrong with it?" He asked, starting to calm down a bit.

"Great to see you too Reid," Cami said bringing Reid back down to Earth.

"Wait, Cami?" Reid stated confused. "Why are you here?"

"Didn't I tell you that I got an internship here?" She asked, slightly annoyed.

"Not that I can recall," Reid reminisce. "So back to what's actually important, is that treecko going to be okay?"

"Where did you even get a treecko?" Cami asked, unintentionally angering Reid for changing the subjects.

"Just tell me what's wrong with that treecko. Is it going to be okay? He asked growing impatient.

"Well…" Cami stalled looking back to her laptop's screen, the pop up still being there. "I hate to say it but it says here that it's a disease stage four...I don't like it's chances…"

"Well how bad is that?!" Reid said raising his tone.

"Let's just say," Cami started growing more worried for her friend. "Brain tumors are disease level 3."

Reid sighed, disappointed that the treecko couldn't be helped at all. Feeling even worse than he had before, he plopped down into one of the chairs that were in the deserted pokemon center lobby. He looked up to see that Cami was staring at him with worry filled eyes.

"It's fine," he said trying to play off his disappointment. "Circle of life and all that right?"

"Was that your treecko Reid?" Cami asked still behind the counter, though Reid could see tears forming in her eyes.

He sighed again, got up from his chair and walked over to Cami. "No, that wasn't my treecko." He said leaning up against the counter in front of Cami. "I was just walking home from work, I was on the pathway and I found it groaning and shaking in the middle of it. I brought it here as quickly as I could when I noticed that it was sick."

"Oh, well at least it isn't your pokemon or anything," She awkwardly laughed trying to break the tension.

Reid frowned from the statement, only feeling more down from it. Thinking for a moment, he came up with what he wanted to do next. "Hey Cami?" he asked grabbing her attention. "do you think the pokemon center would get mad if I slept on one of the couches until that treecko gets out of its...problem?" He asked, stumbling trying to find some of his words.

"Oh, no not one bit, here I can even get you a pillow and blanket while you wait," She said trying to get a little more peppy.

"Just a pillow is fine," Reid said stopping her for a moment while she ran into one of the storage closets in the lobby.

"Alright then," She said trying to sound a bit more cheerful. "Well here's that," She said handing the pillow over to him.

"Thanks Cami," He said getting a smile from her as he walked over to one of the couches. "One other thing though, would you mind waking me up if it ever wakes up?" He asked her with her simply nodding in response.

Smiling a little that his best friends was there for him, he tossed the pillow on the couch and layed down on top of it. Immediately closing his eye, hoping for the best for the treecko.

* * *

Reid felt something poking him, nothing sharp or anything, just little prods from something small, yet soft. Slowly opening his eye, he was surprised to see Cami crouching next to him, along with a big smile on her face. He took the hint to wake up, remembering that he was in the town's pokemon center after he'd brought that sick treecko in.

"Hey," Reid groaned sitting up from the couch, "what time is it?"

Cami glanced at her watch, "A quarter past noon," She replied without looking up.

"Awhh shit I missed work!" He panicked, realizing that he was probably going to lose his job.

"Isn't today your day off though?" Cami asked a little concerned for her friend.

"You know how my boss is a dick?" Reid asked getting a nod back from Cami. "Yeah, I didn't get today off."

"Oh," Was all she could reply with, frowning a little bit.

"By the way, is that treecko okay?" Reid asked with Cami's mood taking a complete 180.

"Yeah your treecko's fine! You want to go see it for yourself?"

Reid's crappy attitude turned around as he heard those words. "What do you think?! Yes I want to see it!"

Cami nodded as she stood up. She motioned for her friend to follow her as they both walked towards the doors that led to the medical wing of the pokemon center. As they walked in, Reid noticed that there were a lot of doors leading to what seemed like big room due to how spaced out they were. As he kept walking, he noticed that most of the rooms were labeled as surgical rooms, but every now and then came the occasional storage room. Finally, Cami had brought him to the room where the treecko was. The light above the room signaling whether or not surgery was in progress, turned off. She opened the door to the room, and bright, white light flooded into Reid's eyes. With his eyes finally focusing, he noticed the treecko was sitting on an operating table, talking to a Mr. Mime. Reid would have been excited to see that the creature was fine, but was taken back when he noticed that's it's skin had completely changed colors. Instead of it being the normal mixture of greens, the treecko was a bright blue color, with its belly being a smooth and somehow silky tan, along with its tail being a warm scarlet. Confused, Reid looked over to Cami to see her smiling.

"Why's that Treecko blue?" Reid asked still slightly alarmed.

"Well you see," Cami started to explain, "It had contracted a very rare disease that we call Pokerus," Reid nodded along, diving head first into her explanation. "It's a very deadly virus that basically boils the skin alive. Along with being incredibly painful, it has roughly a seventy percent mortality rate. If you do end up surviving from it though, your skin's chloroform pallets completely change, which is why it's not the usual grass type green anymore." Cami finished with Reid being surprised as to just how lucky that treecko was.

"Wow…" was all he could respond with. He looked up seeing the treecko was looking towards him, then back to the Mr. Mime, who Reid presumed was explaining the whole situation to it.

"You think I can go and talk with it?" He asked Cami who nodded in return. Reid proceeded towards the operating table with the treecko looking up and watching him approach. It seemed to flinch as Reid stood next to the table, only to have the Mr. Mime calm it down.

"Hey little buddy, how you doing?" He asked as calmly as he could. The treecko looked back towards the Mr. Mime which gave it a warm nod in return.

The treecko seemed to smile, as it jumped into the air, landing on top of Reid's head and taking him with it to the ground. Cami gasped only to see Reid was laughing with the treecko jumping up and down on his stomach. She let a smile creep onto her face, having not seen Reid laugh like that in a long time.

"Down boy! haha, down!" Was all Reid could shout out as the treecko continued to smother itself on him. He quickly glanced up to Cami "It is a boy right?" He asked quickly with the treecko jumping around on him.

"Yeah it's a boy," She said with a chuckle as the two continued to play on the floor.

"Well," Reid started, getting up from the ground with the treecko climbing around his body. "What should I do about him?"

The moment he finished the treecko jumped off of him, and started to cling to his leg, as if to say that it wanted to stay with him. Reid looked down and into its pleading yellow eyes, feeling a bit of guilt for asking.

"I just don't know if I could support myself and a pokemon…" he trailed off with the treecko's grip only growing stronger.

"I really think he likes you though," Cami replied petting the treecko's head lightly.

Reid sighed, looking back down into the treecko's eyes. God, it was like a growlithe pup was begging him for his table scraps. "Alright," he caved in. "I'll look after it."

The treecko lept into the air, letting a cry of its own name out in excitement. It landed on Reid's right shoulder, balancing itself perfectly on it. Reid smiled, sort of happy that it was his pokemon now. His smile quickly faded though when he realized that there were a couple things he would need to do before the treecko was his.

"You guys sell pokeballs here right?" Reid asked getting a nod back from Cami. "I'm going to need a couple of those then, along with trainers insurance right?" He asked getting yet another nod back from Cami. He let out another sigh, knowing just how expensive trainers insurance was.

"I'm still not sure about the costs though," Reid said with disdain clear in his voice. "I don't have much money in my account, and I'm not sure that the job I have will be able to afford it. I mean, four hundred Ref a month is bloody expensive. Although," He trailed looking up towards his new treecko, its blue arms still messing around his hair in excitement. "I-I think I'd be able to scrape by."

Cami smiled, glad to see that her friend was going through with it. She motioned for Reid to follow her. The three of them proceeded to leave the medical wing and went back towards the front lobby. She went behind the counter, picking out three pokeballs from the small box of them that the pokemon center had. Being that apricorns (the red shell of the pokeball) were so hard to grow, pokeballs were quite expensive, with the higher tier ones only spiking higher in price. People signing up for trainer's insurance for the first time however, received a few for free. Cami also searched through a few drawers until she found what she was looking for. It was a small tablet, roughly the size of an average cell phone and handed it to Reid.

"That's your proof of insurance," She said as Reid began to fill out his information on the tablet. "Lose that and you basically lose the right to own your treecko."

The treecko panicked a bit, still on Reid's shoulder, with Reid petting it lightly to let it know it was okay.

"Don't worry buddy, I'm not gonna lose ya," he said getting more happy coos from the gecko. His attention drifted when he heard a clang come from the counter. Looking down he noticed a few of what looked like belts. "What are those?" He asked a little confused.

"They're pokebelts. Not the best name for them, I know, but you put your pokeballs here on the side of it." She finished, pointing towards a spot on the belts which had what looked to be suction cups. "You shrink your pokeballs down and place them on here and they stick to the belt until you expand them again."

"Huh, stylish and functional." He said sarcastically taking a belt that was a dark shade of black. He looped them through the loops of his jeans and placed the two empty pokeballs onto it. Taking the third pokeball and gripping it soundly. He knew what the next step was. He had to register his DNA to the pokeball to prove that the pokeball belonged to him. Also, it was needed for the psychological bond that had to take place. The thought of using a pokeball took him back to his days in junior high, where an entire semester was dedicated to how pokemon training worked and thought back to what his teachers told him.

-.-.-

"The reason why you have to have a psychological bond, is so that pokemon captured don't rampage and slaughter whomever it was that had caught them," Reid's teacher lectured on as he hurriedly took notes on the subject. "A mental bond was created so that people could hold a mental grasp over a pokemon, forcing it to do whatever it is that the trainer says for it to do. There are however physical restrictions to this though," A few people raised their hands, probably curious as to what some of those restrictions were.

"What are some of those restrictions?" yup.

"With the more control a person had over a pokemon, the more exertion it puts on the trainer," Their teacher went on with some of the students "ooh"-ing in the background. He pulled out a pokeball and sat it on his desk, opening it with a small Slakoth appearing on it.

"With a red control level of 1.0, you have complete control over a pokemon. However, having it on this level will most likely make you feel nauseous after a prolonged period of time. A green level allows you to have some control over what your pokemon, and is typically what you'll use whenever you battle with somebody due to how it grants input from the trainer while still allowing the pokemon to follow some of their natural instincts," he finished as he flipped a tiny switch on the pokeball turning the ring in the center to a bright neon green.

"A green level has a 0.5 point value. This level will only really cause headaches after a few hours. Finally blue level has a point value of 0.0 and lets pokemon have total control of themselves with trainers not really feeling any side effects," he finished as he returned the Slakoth to its ball and putting it back into his pocket.

"Now, I'm sure a question all of you are wondering is, do these points stack onto each other? The answer is yes, they do. And the consequences for prolonged exposure to these points can be damaging. Don't go thinking that you're a hotshot and send out six pokemon on red level at once. It can permanently damage your brain if you do. Pokemon masters and elite four members are only able to handle 2.5 point values; and is after years and decades of mental training."

-.-.-

"Well that was a nice flashback" Reid thought to himself as he placed his finger on the ring in the middle of the pokeball. He pricked his finger, swearing slightly to himself as the pokeball registered his DNA. A soft ping was heard confirming that the DNA was accepted and was ready to capture whatever he threw the ball at. Reid glanced up at treecko, who was still playing with his hair, picked him up and placed him on the counter.

"You really sure you want to be my pokemon?" Reid asked getting a happy cry as a response.

Smiling back at him, Reid took the ball and lightly tapped it on the treecko's head. The treecko was instantly sucked inside the ball with a red flash of light. Without putting up a single struggle, the ball shook once in his hand before letting out another ping to acknowledge that the Treecko had been captured successfully. Reid smiled, happy that he no longer had to live alone. Keeping his smile on his face, he took out his wallet and handed Cami his debit card. She swiped it, making Reid flinch knowing just how much money he was spending on his Treecko.

"I think it'll be healthy to have a pokemon living with you, ya know," Cami smiled handing Reid back his card.

"I know, it's just I'm probably going to have to make some budget cuts," He laughed awkwardly.

Looking at the electric clock on the counter, he noticed that it was almost one. Seeming panicked again, he placed treecko on his belt and headed for the front door.

"Don't forget to name him!" Cami yelled out, getting a wave back in response from Reid. She let a deep sigh, hoping that this would help bring back to the way that he used to be.

* * *

Rushing into the restaurant, Reid noticed that it was busier than it normally was. Swearing under his breath, he tried to sneak to the back and start working without his boss noticing him coming in. Unfortunately for him, he did.

"Mr. York!" His boss yelled at him from across the restaurant, catching the attention of most of the patrons there. "You were supposed to come in early today. And what did you not do?!" He erupted as he began to pace over to him.

"I'm sorry, I found a sick pokemon last night and I've been at the hospital with it since…" Reid tried to explain but was cut off by his boss.

"And what's my policy for excuses?!" He blared seeming even more mad than before Reid had tried to explain things.

"Look it was an emergency. If I hadn't done what I did then…" Reid tried to get out, now with everyone in the restaurants attentions focusing on the scene that his boss was making.

"I don't care if it was your own mother that was dying! When I tell you to be here, you be here!" He blasted, with people gasping and even some leaving due the scene. "Now get out of my restaurant Mr. York because you are fired!" He yelled.

Reid had, had a feeling that this was going to happen. Standing up tall, he cleared his throat and raised his middle finger towards his now former boss. Without saying a word, Reid made his way to the door, finger still raised, and left to go home.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Bursting out of its pokeball in a flash of white light, Treecko appeared on the worn coffee table planted in front of Reid's sofa. Blinking slowly getting used to the darker atmosphere, Treecko looked around for its new trainer, which he saw walking towards a room on the left side of a hallway. Jumping off the table, he followed his trainer into an even darker room. Actually, this room was pitch black. The only reason Treecko actually managed to find his trainer in the pitch black was because of the dim lighting that came through the hallway. Jumping onto the bed where his trainer had plopped down head first, treecko began to prod its trainer with gentle pokes.

"I know we just met and all," Reid mumbled with his face buried in his pillow. "But do you think you could give me a minute to think my life over?"

Treecko frowned, putting even more effort into its prodding.

Reid let out a sigh, taking his face out of his pillow to see the treecko's silhouette.

"You're a persistent one aren't you?" Reid asked letting out a little chuckle.

A loud growl came from his stomach, making an echo throughout his apartment, loud enough to even startle treecko a bit. Reid chuckled again, finding it amusing just how easily the little gecko could be startled.

"Well, I bet you haven't eaten in a while either have you?" Reid asked, barely seeing the treecko shake its head in the dim light.

Getting up from his bed, treecko jumped onto his shoulder again, and the two of them walked toward the kitchen (if you could call it that). Entering the small nook, there was a stove that looked like it was more than twenty years old. There were a few white cabinets, they were painted white but was chipped in a few places. Reid approached the somewhat tall fridge that was next to the stove, opening it. The light from the fridge flooded the apartment, lighting it up more than the lamp next to the sofa did. Reaching into the fridge, Reid pulled out two cans and brought them over to the coffee table along with a can opener and a pair of forks. After opening the cans, the aroma of fruit and sugar filled the air. Reid handed the opened can of Oran berries, along with a fork to Treecko, who quickly snatched the can, not even bothering with the fork.

"You sure are hungry aren't you?" Reid laughed as Treecko winced at how sweet the fruit was. "Yeah, canned fruit isn't really the best is it?"

"Ko eecko." Treecko sighed as it spit the fruit back into the can.

"Can't really blame you," Reid said as he ate the piece of fruit on his fork. "But you get used to it over time," Reid reached over for the remote, turning it on with the local news being the first channel to show up.

"-ith Team Aqua and Team Magma skirmishes still occurring between routes 113 and Fallarbor town. Residents there have been told to stay in their homes until further instructed." The news lady spoke to the camera.

"Some scary stuff going on in the world huh?" Reid asked out loud getting small chirp in response.

"In other news" The male co-anchor said, "The Rustboro City gym is finally open after the renovations it had last month. New psychic generators have been added, as well as a great mural depicting two fossil pokemon duking it out." He said, comically holding his fists in a boxer's stance.

"He's always acting that cheesy," Reid said as he started to pet treecko's tail (feeling like he was petting an eggplant) and got a light coo in response. "Can hardly take his job seriously, then again guess it's hard to judge when I don't have a job anymore."

Reid started to think of all the possible things he could apply for. Maybe the deli down the street, possibly the supermarket across town. He knew a thing or two about cars, the mechanics shop wouldn't be a bad place to go.

Being so deep in thought, Reid didn't even notice that treecko was starting to nudge him.

"Or maybe I could apply join the military…" Reid started to talk out loud, treecko now starting to hit him.

"Maybe I should go back to school. Community college isn't all that expensive, and heck….maybe it could-"

Treecko had grown tired of waiting. With it's red tail glowing to a bright white, it jumped into the air, slamming its tail onto Reid's head. Catching Reid off guard, he was sent flying towards the floor, landing on his back with a silent cry escaping from his mouth.

"The hell Treecko?!" Reid yelled out as he started to rub his throbbing head.

Reid looked at it as it pointed towards the television with a serious look on its face. Another report was going on the news, still focusing on the Rustboro area, but with a different topic.

"-ould you care to share the rules of this tournament?" a reporter asked a man dressed in a very fancy, white suit.

"I'll just give you the basics to keep it short," The suited man chuckled. "The rules follow as such; a trainer will be able to use up to three pokemon. Once that pokemon is knocked out, it's out of the round. Basically it's just standard pokemon league rules."

"I guess that's to be expected. So how much will the winner of the tournament receive?" The reporter asked.

"Well, I'm writing the winner of my tournament a big check for 7,500 Ref!" He yelled excited with Reid more focused on the tv rather than his hurting head.

"Now when will this tournament be taking place Mr. Stone?" The reporter asked, keeping the onslaught of questions going.

"It will be taking place here in Rustboro City a couple weeks from now! I just want trainers from across Hoenn to show up and fight it out in what is sure to be an epic brawl!" The suited man yelled out with excitement.

Peeling his eyes away from the tv, Reid reached out and patted treecko on its head. "You can't seriously think that we'd win that do you?" Reid doubted, doubting that treecko could be serious about it.

But to his surprise, Treecko had a beaming, yet serious look in its eyes.

"Well," Reid paused, "I'm not sold. I don't even have the slightest insight as to how to battle, not to mention I have no idea how experienced you are."

Looking insulted, Treecko started to stare Reid down, somewhat intimidating him.

"Well I'm just keeping it real, we'd have no chance of winning that tournament. I appreciate your help bu-"

Treecko's tail began to light up again, making Reid jump over the side of the sofa for cover.

"Okay, okay chill!" Reid panicked not wanting to be struck in the head again. "I can tell you have some-"

Treecko's tail grew even brighter

"-a lot of experience! So how about we go to the training facility!?" Reid spoke hastily as Treecko's tail went back to its 'normal' red color.

Reid let out a sigh of relief as he threw both the cans of fruit into the trash, grabbed his keys, Treecko's pokeball, and left his apartment with treecko riding his shoulder.

* * *

After about ten or so minutes of walking, Reid and treecko had finally reached the Pokemon Training Facility. As he had walked over, a few people had seen he'd had his pokemon out of its pokeball. Even with that being a rare sight in it of itself(due to the mental bonds and such), he'd seen a few mouths hit the ground when they noticed his treecko was blue instead of green. Simply shrugging it off, he'd proceeded to the facility without much of an interruption. Reid set treecko down onto the ground, and looked it in the eyes, trying to take this whole situation as seriously as treecko was.

"Okay, so before we go in, the people inside are going to have to put something on you so I want you to be calm about it okay?" Reid asked trying keep treecko in the loop. "It's just a collar to make sure you don't go beyond a certain range of power so you don't accidently blow the place up okay?"

Treecko gave Reid a weird look as to how he knew this, considering Reid had told him that he had no idea how to battle or anything.

"They teach everybody about this stuff when you start high school, cause that's around the age you are legally allowed to become a trainer." Reid said understanding its confused look.

Nodding, treecko hopped back onto Reid as they went inside the building. Having never actually been inside the training facility, Reid was surprised when he noticed the first thing past the front doors looked like a security checkpoint. Noticing a booth with a receptionist, Reid proceeded to walk over to her.

"Yeah I'd like to enter and train with my treecko," Reid said catching the attention of the receptionist.

"Oh why certainly sir," She said, spinning her chair to face him. "I'll just need to see your trainer's insurance an-" She paused as she noticed treecko standing on Reid's shoulder.

The woman cocked her head to make sure she was seeing things straight, making Reid and Treecko sweatdrop.

"Why is your Treecko blue?" She asked not even bothering to do her job at this point, looking like a child that was trying to figure out which peg went in the square hole.

"Long story…" Reid answered, with the woman starting to get over her marveling.

"Oh, I see." She replied getting back to her job. "Well I can certainly let you, just please show us your trainer's insurance and give us your treecko for a moment so we can attach its limiter."

Before Reid could even say anything to him, Treecko had jumped down onto the counter ready to receive the limiter. The lady unlocked a drawer pulling out the limiter. Being slightly thick, the lady put the collar around Treecko's neck, and tightened it snuggly around his neck.

"And your trainer's insurance?" She asked Reid, getting the last adjustments on Treecko's limiter.

"Oh, right." Reid responded, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out the phone-like gadget.

He handed it over and the receptionist who started to input what seemed to be a lot of information, as she seemed to be typing a thousand words per minute. Smiling as she looked up, she flipped a switch on the limiter, making Treecko cringe for a moment, trying to get used to the absorption of his power. Quickly getting used to it, Treecko stood tall a raised its fist towards Reid, who gave a grin in response.

"Alright, looks like you're all set, enjoy yourselves," The receptionist as she pointed towards a door. "Just enter through and use the facilities as you see fit."

Reid gave a nod as Treecko jumped back onto Reid's shoulder, and the two of them made their way towards the training rooms. Upon opening the door, Reid was surprised to see a few dozen people lifting weights, along with what appeared to be fighting type pokemon. There were a few Machops, Machokes, what Reid thought were Primapes, and even a Hawlucha doing acrobatics on the large steel beams that supported the raised ceiling.

Shrugging it off, Reid looked towards Treecko to see just what it wanted to train on. To his surprise Treecko was pointing in the direction of a hallway on his right. Not questioning what Treecko was up to, he walked into the hallway which seemed to go on forever. As he approached the end of the corridor, he noticed a single room at the end. Assuming that was where Treecko wanted to go, Reid immediately opened the door. Entering, Reid noticed just how long the room was. At the end of the long room, dozens of targets lined up the concrete walls. Some looked like they were made of solid steel while others looked technical and had antenna sticking from them. Some of the targets though, were charred and dented beyond what Reid would have considered usable. To be honest, it looked like a shooting range.

Reid also noticed that he and Treecko were the only ones in the range besides one other person who had a Ralts. A moment later, the room lit up with bright and vibrant colours as a psychic attack flew down the range and hit one of the technical looking target straight on. Fully expecting the target to explode or something along those lines, Reid tensed up, but realized what kind of targets most of them were. They were targets that absorbed special attacks.

Reid walked over to one of the special attack stalls, making sure to keep a few stalls between him and the Ralts trainer so not to be awkward. Jumping down from his shoulder, Treecko landed on the counter that separated the lounge area from the range.

"So I'm guessing you want to show me what moves you have and how strong you are?" Reid asked getting a nod from Treecko.

Treecko turned itself towards the range, letting a small grunt as small green orbs began to fly from its back and towards the target. They sped down, hitting one of the smaller targets and sinking into its antenna. Reid looked down to Treecko, impressed that it could hit a small target so easily, and from so far away too.

"Was that absorb or something?" Reid asked getting a nod from Treecko who still had its back to him.

Treecko then walked a few stalls down to one that had the steel targets and Reid followed it. Treecko jumped down from the counter down onto the range, making Reid slightly worried, but remembering that the only other person here was the Ralts trainer and he was at least ten stalls down. Looking back to Treecko, Reid noticed it was starting to have a white glow outline it. Within the blink of an eye, Treecko had disappeared and was all the way down range. It quickly ran back towards Reid who was impressed with just how fast it was.

"Quick attack right?" Reid asked getting yet another nod back from Treecko.

Next, Treecko began to irradiate a dark, black aura. Reid was actually taken back from this, having absolutely no idea what move it was. Treecko dissappeared, only to reappear on the other side of the range and a loud 'thong' rang throughout the room. Treecko's body slammed into the metal target, with the dark aura still shrouding its body. Reid sweatdropped as Treecko ran back to the stalls.

"Okay I've got no idea what move that was, but it sure looked powerful," Reid awkwardly laughed as Treecko face palmed at its trainer.

"I believe that move was pursuit? Would I be correct?" A voice chimed in that Reid didn't recognize.

Turning around, Reid saw that it was the Ralts trainer who had approached him. He looked to be around the same age as Reid, although he had a more mature charm to him. Reid's eyes instantly took notice of the trainer's dark green hair, as well as his light brown eyes. He wore a red and gray track jacket with blue jean to go along with it.

"Quite odd to find a shiny pokemon here of all places though. Plus the color of it, is just exquisite," The trainer said as Treecko jumped up from the range to see what was going on.

"I'm sorry a shiny pokemon?" Reid asked looking over to Treecko, seeing it being more dirty from hitting the charred targets than he did shiny.

"Why yes, that's the average joe's way of saying you own a pokemon of a rare kind. This case being that your pokemon is a completely polar opposite color of a normal Treecko," The trainer trailed on as he started to inspect Treecko, who was a little on edge from the surprise body search.

After a minute of the trainer inspecting Treecko, it'd grown tired of him ogling over its body. Treecko's tail began to glow a bright white and before Reid could stop it, Treecko had smashed its tail into the guy's head.

Quickly reaching for Treecko's pokeball, Reid set it to red, "Treecko, stop this now!" Reid yelled at it, with Treecko instantly freezing in place.

"Wow, that worked better than I thought it would," Reid said, wincing once he realized how hard Treecko had hit the other trainer. "Hey umm, are you okay dude?"

"Name's Wally," He said standing up, rubbing his sore head and extending his other arm "And don't worry about it. I had it coming anyways."

Reid reluctantly shook it, hoping that he wouldn't do something like press charges. He looked down to Treecko who was standing straight up and had its hands by its sides. Its eyes showed a deep hatred for what Reid was doing to it, almost like it was even going to start crying.

"I'm Reid, and this feisty guy is Treecko," Reid commented getting a weird look from Wally.

"You didn't name your Treecko?" He asked looking like Reid he was a barbarian.

"Well, considering I just got him a few hours ago, I guess I haven't gotten around to it yet," Reid finished with Wally seeming a bit more understanding, yet somehow depressed.

"You're telling me I could have caught a shiny Treecko today!?" Wally groaned as he slouched over.

"I don't see what the big deal is, Treecko is just a different color, that's all," Reid said with Wally just getting more and more depressed.

"Shiny pokemon are so rare and are so valuable, you have no idea!" He wailed "That Treecko is probably worth 50,000 Ref to the right buyer!"

Reid almost choked on his spit when he heard just how much someone might have been willing to pay for his pokemon. He could probably live off that much money for the next 5 years without working. Snapping out of his daydreaming, he slapped himself for even thinking such a thing.

"It's not something I would be interested in," Reid said as he turned the pokeball level to green, relieving the small headache starting to form in his head, and getting a sigh of relief from Treecko.

"Well, that's totally up to you man. Just trying to feed ya some facts," Wally replied.

"So how long have you been a trainer?" Reid asked him trying to change the subject.

"Ehh...a couple months now, it's been going well for me," He answered with Reid nodding in contemptment.

"You make decent money?" Reid asked hoping to hear a good answer.

"Depends how good of a trainer you are," He started, taking his backpack off of him and digging through it. He quickly found what he was looking for and pulled out the small case. Moving over to Reid, he opened it, revealing a badge inside. It was in the second slot of the case and was in the shape of a boxing glove.

"Is that the knuckle badge?" Reid asked, somewhat in awe.

"Sure is, got it using just Philly over there," He said with with Reid looking back down the stalls to see that the Ralts still practicing is psychic type attacks.

"You named it Philly?" Reid asked, slightly chuckling at the name.

"Hey, that's what he wanted to be called, we spent days trying to figure it out, but finally he settled on Philly," Wally laughed, remembering the constant bickering the two had been through.

"So back on topic," Reid said with Treecko hopping back onto the range and practicing its attacks "How hard does it get to fight during a battle?"

"You gotta stop thinking that every opponent is going to be the same," Wally spoke with Reid nodding slightly. "You could be up against a team of pokemon that little Philly over there could sweep no problem, or it could be a team that would completely dominate him, no matter how much effort we put in. That's just how battles work. You will lose a battle one day, and there's no guaranteed victory. The only thing I can say to do to get better, is practice and train everyday," He finished, with Reid feeling like he should have already known most of what Wally was talking about.

Noticing how Reid was reacting, Wally cut back in. "But hey, don't feel discouraged. It's your first day as a trainer, and I mean you already came here to train, so it's not like you're off track," He said with Reid remembering just where exactly they were.

Smiling, Reid glanced back to Treecko, who had just finished another quick attack, hitting the target square on, creating yet another loud bang.

"You sure you caught that guy today?" Wally asked seeming a little confused.

"Yeah, you can ask him too. Why do you ask?" Reid asked looking at Wally with a questioning glance.

"How did you two meet?" Wally asked looking at Treecko, who had just finished another quick attack, with a perplexed look as he pondered.

"He was dying on a path last night and I brought him to the pokemon center," Reid said wondering why he was asking so many questions.

"And what are you training for?" Wally asked still gazing at Treecko who just slammed a pound attack into the steel target.

"We're going to be participating in a tournament in a couple weeks. So hey what's with all the questions?" He asked getting annoyed that Wally was ignoring him.

"And who brought who here to train?" Wally asked him, turning and looking into his eyes with a deep gaze.

"What do you mean by that?" Reid asked now totally lost from whatever Wally was going on about.

"I mean, did you bring your Treecko here to train, or did your Treecko bring you here?" Wally asked with Reid finally understanding.

"Oh, well I guess you could say that Treecko brought me here," A bit of red showing on his face. The thought of his pokemon having control over him was quite funny actually.

"I knew it," Wally said looking back towards Treecko who was still hitting a steel target with its glowing tail.

"Knew what?" Reid asked confused to where this was all going.

Wally looked towards him with a serious gaze, "You're not that Treecko's first trainer."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"What do you mean I'm not Treecko's first trainer?" Reid asked as Treecko continued to pound its glowing tail into the steel targets.

"You see the way Treecko swings its tail when it hits that target?" Wally said and Reid turned to see what he was talking about.

As he did, Treecko slammed its glowing tail once more into the steel target, large dents now very evident in it.

"Your Treecko is one, practicing its moves on its own and with so much vigor," Wally said with Reid doubting him.

"What does that have to do with anything? Treecko just likes me and is putting good effort into his strikes," Reid replied, still very skeptical about Wally's theory.

"Ah, a valid point. But do you see the way that it hits that target?" He asked and Reid turned to Treecko again and analyzed its strikes. "His strikes are so similar and on point. There's a pattern to it that wild pokemon don't tend to have," He finished with Reid now starting to believe him.

"Think of Treecko like a boxer. Boxers spend a long time perfecting their jabs and strikes, making sure that each one has similar amounts of power and thrust. Then think of wild pokemon as thugs, people who might be strong, yet have no balance between their blows. After seeing what your Treecko can do out there, I'd say he's along the lines of the boxer," Wally finished with Reid not knowing what to think.

"Hey Treecko!" Reid yelled grabbing his attention. "Can you c'mere for a sec?" Reid yelled again and Treecko sprinted back to him.

As Treecko reached the two trainers, he saw that Reid had a confused and kind of worried look, making Treecko cock its head in confusion too.

"Treecko, did you have a trainer before me?" Reid asked with Treecko's eyes dilating the mere mention of it.

Both Reid and Walley noticed Treecko's mood change and took it as a sign of it being a pretty sensitive subject.

"You want to talk about it?" Walley asked with Treecko not even bothering to answer.

Taking the initiative, Wally walked over to a large backpack in the corner of the Range, pulled out a collar looking device. The only weird thing about the collar was that it looked more like the limiters than a normal collar, but something was off about it. Giving Treecko a questioning glance, Treecko simply nodded and Wally proceed to place the collar on top of the limiter.

"So what happened?" Wally asked, Reid still not knowing what Walley had just placed on Treecko.

"My trainer was killed…" Treecko spoke in a medium voice making Reid jump back, surprised that Treecko was talking "...beedrill swarm" He let out, tears now flowing down its face, stumbling in his speech "I tried to fight. Tried to save her..." Treecko bawled with Reid moving closer to try and comfort him "But I was useless!"

Grabbing Treecko and hugging him to try to help calm him down, Reid looked over to Wally, who had a tear forming in his eyes too. "What did you do to make Treecko talk?"

"I put my talking collar on him," Wally replied with Reid understanding what was going on.

"How could you possibly afford that?" Reid asked, rubbing Treecko's back as he continued to sob into Reid's shoulder.

"Won it in a battle," Wally said with his Ralts joining the group and climbing onto Wally's lap.

"What's the matter?" Philley asked in a light and shy voice with Reid jumping back again not expecting it to talk.

"That Treecko had some bad memories come back," Wally said with Ralts nodding.

It jumped off of Wally's lap and proceeded to walk over to the Treecko. Treecko took its head out of Reid's shoulder as it suddenly felt...something...washing over him and making him feel...at peace…

Reid noticed the pinkish aura radiating from Philley, it was warm, soothing, and kind of felt like he was taking a warm bath. Reid was wondering what was going on and Wally simply replied, "Calm mind."

After a moment of letting the calming aura clear its head, Treecko collected itself and looked towards Reid. "Thank you." with everybody around giving a supportive nod. He continued to gaze off down the range with a distant glare, but he no longer felt the fear and sorrow that he felt before; just a bit of emptiness.

"You want to talk about it a little bit more Treecko?" Reid asked and Treecko turned to face him in the eyes.

"My name is Sia," Treecko spoke, taking pride in saying his name. "It was givin to me by my previous trainer Sheila when we started our journey a couple months ago," He spoke with Philly jumping up onto Reid's lap as well, putting his arm around Sia to help comfort him. "We ended up getting lost on route 102 and after a couple days, we accidently stumbled into beedrill nesting grounds...we were ambushed…" Sia choked, yet continued with the rest listening in. "We ran forever...but we ended up being blocked by some rapids...she threw me in at the last second...and the last thing I saw before I hit the water…" He choked again with Ralts now struggling to keep him calm. "Was a stinger stabbed through her stomach!" He cried out with looks of horror on everybody's' faces. For a few moments, the only sound was Sia letting out a few last weeps into Reid's shoulder.

"How long were you alone for?" Reid asked with Sia not bothering to look up.

"Probably more a month," Sia replied feeling a bit more calm as Philly's move soothed him over again.

"So…" Reid contemplated, "Why is it that you're so attached to me?" He asked with Sia glaring at him like he had just said something mental.

"I was dying and in the worst possible pain I'll ever be in. You saved my life. That reason enough for you?" Sia asked with Reid simply nodding. "Plus your hair reminds me of hers…"

"But how come you're so determined to compete in that tournament?" Reid asked with Treecko giving him the same glare as before.

"You think that because Sheila died that I'm going to give up on my dream?" He said sounding a bit cynical.

Reid simply nodded with Wally seeming a bit more curious in them.

"What tournament are you going to again?" He asked them, wondering if it was the same one he was going to attend.

"The one in Rustboro that's a couple weeks away," Reid replied with Wally getting and excited look.

"Wow really?!" Wally yelled, seeming a bit excited. "We were planning on headed there too!"

"Huh, what a weird coincidence." Reid said with Wally seeming way more pumped about this than what should be considered normal.

"YES!" Wally screamed with everybody jumping at his sudden burst. "I'VE FINALLY FOUND MY RIVAL!"

"Oy…" Reid groaned as he looked back down to Sia, getting resettled in his lap. "You feeling better after talking about it?" Reid asked with Sia nodding slightly.

"After being alone for that long...it is definitely nice to get it out of my system," Sia replied and turned to Philly who was still sitting on Reid's lap with him. "And thanks for keeping me sane with that, it really helped," He finished with Philly giving him a thumbs up with its little arms.

"Hey," Wally interrupted gaining everybody's attention "Why don't we all travel to Rustboro together?" Wally asked and Reid started to consider his offer. "We could camp out, train together, it'll be great!" He yelled seeming a bit hyper.

"Well that's a bit sudden," Reid said, feeling a bit nervous about traveling with a character like Wally. "I mean it'd probably be safer, and it'd be a lot less boring," Reid contemplated. "When are you guys even planning on leaving?"

"Philly and I were planning on leaving tomorrow at...noonish…" Wally replied with Reid deadpanning a bit.

"Well that's a bit sudden isn't it?" Reid asked as he started to pet Sia's tail (which still felt like he was petting an eggplant) "I've got to tell my landlord that I'm leaving...I've got to get supplies, probably need clothes and a bunch of other equipment."

"Well it's only like…" Wally trailed as he glared down at his poketch "4:30. You've got plenty of time before most stores close."

"I guess you're right, here add me to your contacts," Reid said as he pulled out his flip phone.

He had to admit, even though his phone wasn't snazzy like the poketch, but it certainly did do its job. Plus the fact that it had survived being dropped about 3 dozen times and managed to stay together after he had thrown it at a brick wall after he'd received a call from his mother.

"And what's your number?" Wally asked him as he was about to finish Reid's info.

"Sure. It's 824-"

"824" Wally said aloud.

"867"

"867" Wally read out again.

"5309" Reid finished.

"5309" Wally read back for the third time; but after thinking for a moment he chuckled and looked back to Reid. "Okay ha ha now what's your real number?"

"What do you mean?" Reid asked not sure what was funny about his number. "What's so funny about my number?"

"It's the number from that song that...God who sang it? Well I'll tell you when I remember but that is too funny dude." Wally laughed out making Reid feel slightly insecure.

"I have no idea what you're talking about dude…" Reid said as Philly jumped down from his lap and started walking over to Wally.

"You seriously don't?" Wally said with tears starting to form in his eyes as he burst into laughter. "It goes like 867-5-3-o-nieeeinee over and over again, how have you never noticed!" He laughed rolling around on the ground with Reid at a loss for words.

"Oy...can we please move on from this…" Reid asked with Wally still laughing at him.

Philly let out a sigh, slightly annoyed that it had to do this to Wally again, but once he was like this, it would take a solid half hour for him to calm down again. Philly let off a quick chant and began to glow a pinkish aura. Wanting to keep the damage to Wally at a minimal, Philly let out a small psybeam attack that hit him directly in the back.

Reid wasn't sure how to react at the display with Sia having the exact same look. Wally screamed out as he was sent back flying from the nearly point blank attack. At least he wasn't dying of laughter anymore right?

"Thanks Philly..." Reid said as Philly walked over to its trainer and started prodding him to make sure his brain hadn't been fried...not that the difference would have been noticeable…

"You really have to keep doing that?" Wally asked as he got up and cracked his back into place.

"Yes. Because once you start laughing you don't stop...it never stops…" Philly spoke back coldly sending a shiver down Reid's back.

"Okay can we please move on? I kind of have no idea what sort of supplies I'd need for a trip like this." Reid begged and Wally walked back over to him.

"Well first thing you'll definitely need is food. The path to Rustboro has a couple of stops along the way so dried food isn't 100% necessary. I do recommend it though," Wally said changing his focus rather quickly.

"Should I be writing this down?" Reid asked.

"It wouldn't hurt to," Wally said as Reid went to the notes section on his phone and started to make the list. "Okay, what else?"

"A water pouch is very important. Always make sure you have enough water for a trip and a few days extra in case you get held up or lost," Wally spoke seriously with Reid feeling slightly intimidated.

"You'll need shelter so a quick pack tent is something I would recommend," Wally spoke. "Also a sleeping bag that's built for winter time use, it can get pretty cold at night so you'll want it. And I would say to get a portable stove but since we're traveling together, I can use it for the both of us."

"Mmkay, anything else?" Reid asked.

"Medical supplies up the wazoo. Enough potions is never enough. It's a good idea to get the super potions instead of the normal ones because those never seem to have enough in them to get the job done. Another thing, how many pokeballs do you have?" Wally asked as Reid looked down at his belt.

"I've got three empty ones." Reid replied.

"That should be enough then. I don't think you'll be catching hordes of Wurmple." Wally chuckled as Reid finished writing all of it down.

"Ohh and one last thing, pack some clothes for multiple occasions, like formal, casual, some winter clothes, jackets, spare underwear, and another set of shoes never hurt anybody," Wally finished.

"Okay wow…" Reid spoke as he looked at the massive list of things that he needed to get. "And exactly do I carry all of this stuff?"

"Just get what I got." Wally said pointing over to his large backpack. "It's military surplus, so it's efficient as well as being pretty cheap," Wally finished.

"And how much would you say all that stuff weighs?" Reid asked already feeling cramps in his back imagining how heavy his pack would be.

"It actually only really weighs a bit more than twenty pounds if you pack everything right. And that's with a portable stove." Wally spoke making Reid feel slightly better about the journey ahead of him.

"Well, looks like I have some shopping to do," Reid said as he closed his phone, stood up, and started to head for the door with Sia on his shoulder. "I'll call you when I've got everything and we can plan out where to meet before we head off."

"Sounds like a plan to me!" Wally hollered. "Philly and I are going to finish up training, so see you tomorrow Reid!"

Reid simply gave his signature three fingered wave using his middle, index, and thumb. It was something that he'd always done for some reason whenever he waved, it just felt natural. As he exited the range and out of the training complex, he began to contemplate what had just happened to him. To think, his whole life had changed in less than a day.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Reid hung up his phone, feeling, liberated in a sense. He'd just finish talking with his landlord and had his room and belongings were to be put up for sale while he was gone. Guess there really wasn't any going back after this. He'd gotten all of the supplies Wally had told him to get and just like he'd been told, it all weighed just above twenty pounds. Carrying that much wasn't a problem. The real problem came when Sia was annoyed by the fact the backpack's strap was in the way of him standing on Reid's shoulder. But he managed around it, so all was good. He also noticed some weird faces he got from strangers when they noticed Sia was out of his ball, and was for some reason blue and red. Reid had just played it off and nothing else besides a couple of comments from some cashiers were thrown his way. The only other major setback was the cost of all his new gear. All of this fancy new equipment, medicine, and clothes had cost him nearly 500 ref total. To be honest, he only had a few hundred Ref left in his account, so this was the only way he was going to dig himself out of this hole.

Reid reached inside his pocket, pulling out his key to open his apartment only to hear his phone ring. The two walked into the apartment with Reid setting his gear down and pulled out his phone. Not recognising the number, he thought he'd humor whomever it was who was calling him.

"Hello?" Reid asked he answered the call.

"It's been a long time Reid," An erie, feminine voice spoke through the phone.

Reid's mouth hinged open and his heart stabbed itself as he realized who exactly had called him.

"...Mo...om" Reid stuttered with Sia giving him a questioning look, not understanding what was going on.

"Yeah, it's me," She spoke lightly with Reid starting to shiver, Sia now realizing that something was wrong. "Your landlord told me what you're doing...I...didn't really know how to respond except by calling you…" She stated.

Gaining courage seeing as she wasn't her usual drunken self, Reid calmed down and mustered up. "You're not changing my mind. I'm going on a journey with Sia."

"I just don't want you to get hurt!" She yelled through the phone.

"Kind of ironic that you're the one saying that!" He retaliated, with his fists starting to clench up.

"I'm sorry I just…"

"No, you're not. That's what the courts told you to say. Now stop calling me. Leave me alone! AND STAY OUT OF MY LIFE YOU DRUNKEN HAG!" Reid screamed as he closed his phone and threw it as hard as he could at his fridge, leaving a large dent in it as his phone bounced back to his feet, still scratchless as ever.

"Reid, are you…" Sia tried to speak up.

"Shut up you little…" Reid shouted trying to calm down.

His fists were clenched so hard now, his nails were digging into his skin, drawing a bit of blood. Reid was doing his best to stay calm, with his breathing gradually getting more and more steady. After a couple minutes, Reid felt he was stable and sat down on his couch, planting his head in his hands. Sia jumped up next to him rubbing its fingers along Reid's back to try and make him feel slightly better about whatever had just made him so angry.

"Thank you Sia," Reid said, still buried in his hands. "Sorry for yelling at you, it's just my mom, she…"

"Don't worry about it," Sia replied still rubbing his back, which felt like tomatoes were caressing him.

There was a knock at the door. It was a light knock, one he knew all too well.

"You can come in Cami!" Reid yelled with his door opening with Cami stepping into his apartment.

"You okay?" Cami asked looking extremely concerned. "I heard, like a lot of screaming coming from here, what happened?" She asked noticing Reid's phone on the ground, along with the large dent in the fridge. "Oh...I see. Did she, say anything hurtful?"

"Surprisingly, no. But she was against my journey, so for me so that was it," Reid spoke, getting up to grab a paper towel to clean off his cuts.

"Wait you're going on a journey?!" Cami yelled, having a hard time contemplating what she had just heard.

"Yup," Reid said as he applied a light gauze to his hand from the medical supplies in his pack.

"But that's crazy, what about your job, your apartment?!" She cried trying to reason with him.

"My boss...ahem...former boss is a dick and I've arranged for my stuff to be sold when I leave," Reid said as he packed the first aid kit back into his backpack.

"Reid, it pains me to say it but I'm with your mom on this one," She spoke grabbing his attention.

"Excuse me?" Reid yelled, repulsed at how anybody could take sides with his mother on any subject.

"Dude do have any idea how dangerous journeys are? My uncle was killed by an Ursaring attack and he'd been training his entire life. I don't want you to get hurt or die Reid!" She said, a tear forming in her eye.

"That's not going to happen," Reid barked, trying to focus on calming Cami down.

"That's what my Uncle said, and you know he actually had experience to back up his word. But you, what the hell do you know about training pokemon?!" She yelled back with Reid feeling slightly insulted.

"I know that it's my only option left!" Reid snapped back with Cami flinching, not knowing how to respond to what he'd just said. "I'm a couple weeks of living away from being totally broke. I got fired from my last job. I own a pokemon! Do you really see many options besides becoming a trainer?!" He yelled at her with tears starting to flow down her cheeks.

"You're the one who pushed this on me in the first place!" Reid shouted as he started to shove his face in his hands.

"I thought you'd keep him as a pet!" She shouted back. "I didn't think you'd go out and start training!" Reid pause and looked back at her, tears now flowing like her eyes were a faucet. He knew he'd screwed up. "Reid, I know you don't have many options but please-" She said getting cut off as Reid wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a deep hug.

Needless to say she was completely shocked. Reid rarely hugged her. The last time in her life that Reid actually had hugged her was when her pet Luvdisc had died. And that was two years ago.

Reid squeezed as hard, yet as passionately as he could, trying to calm her down. His face was burning of embarrassment though. He could the heat radiating off of her too, and the fact that her B bust was hard pressed up against his chest wasn't helping in the slightest.

"Cami, I want you to calm down." Reid spoke quietly still hugging her. "I'm going through with this. I need a change in pace in my life and this my opportunity to make it big, and whether you're with me or not on this, I'm still going through with it," Reid finished with Cami still frozen in place like she had been when he'd first embraced her.

"I-I" She stuttered, "I'm with you…"

Reid let out a sigh of relief, glad she was finally on his side. He took a step away from her and plopped down on his couch, the blood in his face returning to the normal parts of his body.

"But on one condition," She said, with Reid raising an eyebrow, wondering what she was up to. "I-I'm going with you."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Reid walked down the sidewalk, letting out a silent sigh. God was he tired. Cami had kept him up another two hours while they argued about her joining Wally and him on their journey. Eventually Reid gave in because he had been tired of arguing and simply wanted to go to bed. He wasn't opposed to the idea of Cami joining them, it's just that it was so last minute that she had very little supplies, he wasn't sure how her parents would react, and she had her nursing internship. But she said she'd drop everything just to make sure he was safe, which he found flattering.

" _I don't even do anything at my internship besides wait for that fat assed receptionist to come back from the Orange Islands!"_ Reid remenissed from the night before _._

" _But what about school, your friends and family?" Reid had asked her._

" _I've already gotten enough hours in to graduate, you're my best friend and my parents couldn't care less about me," She retaliated._

" _How can you say that with such certainty?"_

" _Because they fucking said so!"_

Her tone had been so serious, like this is the first time she'd ever expressed her feelings. If she was being serious about her parent's, then Reid knew exactly how she was feeling.

" _How do you know they meant it?!"_

" _Because they say it every other god damned day!"_

At that point she had looked like she was a dam about to burst. She'd said so much deep and personal stuff in a matter of seconds and spoke with such heat and passion that Reid had been afraid she was going to pass out.

" _I'm...I'm sorry then," Reid had said realizing that she was living through the same hell that he had lived through._

" _It's...it's fine," She apologized. "Sorry I yelled at you, I just-"_

" _Needed to get it out. I know what you're talking about."_

" _It's just...I don't want to see you get hurt and I need a break from…"_

" _I understand, but think about it this way, you don't even have any of the right gear for the trip?"_

"And for some odd reason, she had most of the stuff she needed." Reid thought out loud as he and Sia passed by a burger joint which was appropriately named 'Burger Joint'.

He thought about it for a bit and decided that he was hungry enough to stop inside. He took out his phone and glanced at the time, seeing that it was 10:57. He had an hour before he was supposed to meet Wally and Cami at the beginning of the path in an hour. Wally still had no idea that Cami was coming on the journey with them, so Reid could only imagine what his reaction was going to be.

"You hungry at all Sia?" Reid asked as they both into Burger Joint.

"Ehh, I could go for some food," Sia responded, sounding like he didn't really care.

As they walked inside, Reid noticed that the place looked like it was a museum of the 50's. The booths were the fronts and backs of old automobiles, the floors had black and white tiles, and there was a jukebox in the corner playing classic rock. This place was like a 10 minute walk from his apartment, how had he never known about it?

Reid noticed a sign that said to help themselves to a seat, so he decided to take one of the car booths. As he and Sia sat down, Reid tossed his rather large backpack to the side and picked up the small one sided menu. The menu only had a few items on it being burgers, salads, and whatever soup it was they were serving that day.

"Hi there guys, My name is Shelby and I'll be your waitress. Can I start y'all off with so-" A woman said as she walked over to Reid's table. "Why's your Treecko blue?" She asked.

"Long story…" Reid sighed, already tired of being asked this question. "And we'll both just have some water."

"Uhh, right," She said backing off and going to grab their water.

"Is it really that annoying when people ask why I'm blue?" Sia asked him.

"If you can tell I have a short fuse on certain things." Reid responded as their waitress came back with their drinks.

"So umm...Are you ready to order?"

"Yeah I'll have a burger with pepperjack cheese cooked medium," Reid said as he passed his menu back to the waitress.

"And for your Treecko?" She asked still writing down Reid's order.

"I'll have a burger patty cooked rare please," Sia said getting weird glances from both the waitress and Reid. "Hey, I like my meat a little bloody okay?"

"Oookay I'll have your meals out as soon as possible," she said backing away from Sia slowly.

There was an awkward pause between Reid and Sia, with Reid still giving him a weird look.

"What?!" Sia exclaimed, getting tired of Reid's look.

"You are a grass type right?" Reid asked wondering why Sia would choose to eat meat...being a grass type and all.

"Well, when Sheila and I were lost together during our last few days...we caught and ate a bidoof...and it was good...so I like meat…" Sia finished, taking a swig of water from it's glass.

"Oh, sorry for bringing that topic back up, I know you don't like talking about it," Reid said taking a sip of his water.

"It's fine you didn't know, and it's probably for the best that you do know so I guess there's no harm done."

Reid looked out the window to his left, noticing the sky was getting a bit more gray. He never really hated gloomy weather, infact he kind of preferred it. It felt calm whenever the skies were a shade of gray instead of the usual neon blue that normally out. He just hoped it would stay gray and not rain because that would be a real shit storm to start his journey out in the rain. The weatherman had said a 30% chance for rain...but the way the clouds were forming, it looked like it was about to start pouring.

"You think it's gunna rain on us?" Reid asked starting the conversation back up.

"Ehh, if it was I'd probably know it. My hair always stands on ends when it's about to rain," Sia spoke glancing out the window.

"Where, on that little blue body of your's, has hair?" Reid asked with a skeptical look.

"It's all over me. You just can't see or feel it. It's what helps me climb objects and sense the weather and stuff like that," Sia said still staring off into the mass of gray clouds

"That's not really a specific range of things," Reid sweatdropped.

"Does it really matter?" Sia said letting out a sigh.

"Well it might you know."

* * *

After a bit more of this conversation and rambling on, the waitress had come out with their burgers. Which had come out a lot faster than Reid had expected them to. Reid's was a bit undercooked but was fine nonetheless, while Sia's was looking like it could still let out a moo. The fries that had come with the meal were much too salty, but with the sheer amount of atmosphere around, it could be forgiven. After he had paid the thirty Ref bill, the two had finished walking to their destination to find that Wally and Philly had actually been waiting there, Wally still wearing the same red and gray track jacket as the day before.

"So how long have you been here?" Reid asked as they approached him.

"I just got here a few minutes ago, no big deal. So you ready to head off mate?" Wally replied looking a bit excited for what was basically a glorified hike through the woods.

"Well, I hate to say it so last minute, but there's going to be another person joining us," Reid said rubbing the back of his head.

"Oh, and who might that-"

"That'd be me!" Cami yelled as she jumped onto Reid's back from out of nowhere.

Reid was doing his best to keep his balance, what with a 150 pound girl hanging from his back and Sia doing his best to keep his balance by hanging onto Reid's hair.

"Cami, I think that's enough!" Reid cried out feeling like she was going to pull him to the ground.

She let go and gave him a pout.

Reid turned, feeling like he should scold her, until he noticed what she was wearing. She was wearing the outfit that he'd always melted over (with him putting in zero effort to hide it). She had on her signature light green tank top that showed off her B bust very well. She was also wearing fairly low cut blue jeans that showed off her slightly chubby legs, but Reid had always found them rather cute.

"l-look, I told you I don't like it when you do that," Reid stuttered with his face slightly red.

"Oh come on have a bit of fun every now and then." Cami chuckled looking up to see some weird looking green haired kid in front of her with a Ralts on his shoulder. "Who's this guy?"

"Cami, this is Wally and the Ralts is Philly. Wally and Philly, meet Cami, she's going to be traveling with us," Reid said bracing for whatever shitstorm was about to go down.

"Oh, well very nice to meet you!" Cami said sounding rather chipper.

"Ooh another traveling companion! How exciting, don't you think Philly?" Wally beamed with Philly nodding in agreement.

"Huh, that went better than expected," Reid said rubbing the back of his head.

"What?" Cami asked confused. "This guy seems legit."

"Yeah, why would I be upset about a cute girl like her joining us," Wally said with Cami letting out a slight blush.

"Well, I, umm...huh," Reid stuttered forgetting his reasoning behind what he thought.

"Well anyways, are we ready to go or what?" Cami asked.

"Yeah umm just one thing before we go?" Reid asked towards Cami and she gave a curious look. "Where are your supplies at?"

"I-umm, well you see my parents were really against this so I-"

"You snuck out didn't you." Reid moped.

"Well I'm 16. I'm a legal adult so I'm allowed to do this." Cami pouted.

Reid let out a sigh. "Alright, well what's done is done. Let's head out and we'll worry about this as it happens. I'm sure we have about four days worth of food and water which is more than enough for the trip to Petalburg."

"But where's she gonna sleep?" Wally asked bringing up a fairly good point.

"I guess she can sleep in my tent. It's not that big of a deal right?" Reid asked not really realizing what he'd just said.

"Ye-ah. No prob," Cami stuttered.

"Great, now that that's settled, let's get going. Don't want to stay here forever do ya?" Reid asked as he started to walk down the path with the others following right behind him.

* * *

They'd been walking for a good solid hour, with their only conversation being mild chit chat. They'd seen a good handful of wild pokemon along the way. Most of them had been bug types with the occasional zigzagoon dart past. Cami had been in awe after seeing a beautifly, and begged Reid to catch it for her. Which he did try, only to have the giant bug wrapping him and Sia up in a string shot attack, leaving the group to free them while it casually flew away. Regardless of that outcome, Cami still needed a pokemon for her protection so they kept an eye out for something.

"So, how exactly did you and Philly meet?" Reid asked breaking the silence.

"Well, it was the day I'd started my journey and I was wandering the entrance of the path that lead from my hometown to Oldale town, and I noticed this little guy's head peaking out of the tall grass." Wally Started with Reid, Cami, and Sia all paying close attention to his story with Philly just nodding along. "I slowly approached him, trying to play it safe, and what do ya know he notices me and hurls a confuse ray my way. Almost hit me too is the cool part. But I dodged it and ran after him."

"This is pretty action packed," Cami replied.

"Oh and mine wasn't?" Reid complained getting a snicker from her.

"Anyways, I ran after him, and damn was he fast. I swear he was bouncing off trees as I ran after him. Well, after chasing him for a minute, I ended up losing him so I walked back to the path, but on my way back, he was waiting for me. Apparently he was impressed that I was able to keep up with him so well. So he let me catch him and after that we just grew on each other." Wally finished with Reid, Cami, and Sia giving weird glances towards Philly, who was wearing a very boastful grin.

"Sounds like he's got quite the jolly nature," Cami joked.

"I find things like that very enjoyable," Philly laughed in his echoey, telepathic voice.

"Creepy…" Sia stuttered.

"He has his charms," Wally spoke as they reached a bend in the path.

As they turned the bend, there was an odd man standing in the road. He was wearing a red cloak and had a large M logo sewn to the front. He had his right hand was inside the hood of his cloak and looked like he was talking on a phone or something.

"No sir I haven't been able to obtain the Devon parts just yet, I-" The odd guy spoke loudly

"That guy seems kinda off doesn't he?" Cami said as they walked closer to him.

"I don't know, maybe he's a trainer?" Wally asked.

"Doubt it, that's not really efficient gear for traveling," Reid responded.

"Yes sir, understood. Hold on, there's a few trainers passing by. Holy shit I think he's got a shiny Treecko! Of course I'm gunna grab it, that's like a guaranteed promotion...Understood, Oakley out," The man said to his earpiece. "You there!" he screamed towards the group.

"Yeah, what's up?" Reid asked as they approached him.

"You are going to hand over your pokemon right now, and nobody's going to get hurt!" The man yelled as he pulled out a great ball.

"Excuse me?" Wally asked confused about the whole situation that was going down.

"You heard me. You're going to give me your pokemon, or I'm gunna put you all in the hospital!"

"And what makes you think we're intimidated by your scrawny ass?" Cami retaliated.

"For your safety you'd better be. Last chance to leave here unharmed," The man threatened.

"Last chance to shut your mouth before I punch you in the throat," Cami yelled with Wally stunned by her vicious bravery.

"You little bitch, I'm gunna pu-" Was all he could say before Cami had closed the thirty foot gap and punched him in the throat.

The man stumbled backwards and landed on his back, gasping for air. "You fu- ***cough*** -itch!" He yelled as he threw his great ball to the ground, and a burst of white light erupting and a large, blue floating object emerging from it.

"Ye-yes?" The thing stuttered in fear, seeing its master on the ground.

"Kill- ***cough*** -em!" The man yelled setting his great ball to red.

"Please don't make me do this!" the thing yelled.

"Kill them now!" He yelled with the object flying at insane speeds towards Cami, who avoided the attack at the last second.

"What the hell is that thing?" Cami yelled as she regrouped with the others.

"I've got no idea, but it can use telepathy so that means it's part psychic type," Wally said with Philly jumping off and getting into a battle stance. "Reid, Philly and I are going to make a distraction. You guys are going to take that opportunity to hit that thing with a pursuit attack. Got it?" Wally yelled with Reid surprised with how well Wally was taking charge.

"Right, Sia, let's go!" Reid yelled as the two of them darted to the woods, a tree shattering behind them as the object slammed straight through it and plowed deep into the ground again.

"Alright, Philly, double team let's go," Wally yelled with Philly nodding as dozens of copies of him began to dart around all over the pass.

"Philly use magical leaf!" Wally yelled as multicolored leaves began to circle all of the Phillys.

With a unison attack, they all let the razor sharp leaves in the direction of the unknown pokemon, dirt and vegetation flying in every direction.

There was an echoing cry from the woods, and the object bulleted out of the woods and flew through dozens of the fake Philly's, smashing into another tree and sending splinters flying everywhere.

"What are you doing! Aim for the trainers you useless beldum!" The man yelled with bloodthirsty tone.

The beldum shot towards them, nearly taking Wally's head off.

"So it's a beldum huh," Wally thought going over his options, not even fazed by the fact he'd almost been killed.

"Philly, it can only use take down, so just do your best not to get hit! If you do it's all over!" Wally yelled out with all of the copies nodding in response.

The beldum turned around again, this time aiming at Cami. It shot towards her, with Cami just barely dodging it by jumping over it. Infact, it managed to rip part of her jeans and drew a small bit of blood in the process.

"Damnit that stings!" Cami yelled as the cloaked man laughed manically.

"Serves you right bi-"

"FINISH THAT SENTENCE AND I'LL PEEL YOUR DICK LIKE A BANANA!" Cami yelled with flames in her eyes.

The beldum crashed into another tree, implanting itself inside of it.

"Knew it," Wally fistpumped. "Alright, Reid strike now!"

Appearing out of nowhere with a midnight aura surrounding it, Sia pounded the back of the exposed beldum, getting a cry of pain in response. Sia landed back on the ground with Reid running out from the woods.

"We good?" Reid asked, looking around and seeing multiple trees that had been completely destroyed with chunks of wood littered everywhere.

"Cami got a little cut, but other than that I think we're good," Wally replied, narrowing his gaze and walking towards the cloaked man who was now starting to cower as the five of them began to walk towards him.

"A'ight, here's how this is going to go down you low life piece of shit!" Cami said cracking her knuckles with the cloaked man crawling backwards. "First, you're going to leave that poor pokemon behind with us, seeing as how you certainly don't hold the qualifications to own one!" She said as she drove a kick into the man's sides.

"Cami, don't dive to his le-" Wally tried to say before Reid signaled him to stay quiet.

"She's gotta vent her anger, and I'm assuming you don't want to be the thing she takes it out on," Reid whispered with Wally letting out an audible gulp.

"Secondly, you're going to apologize for attacking me and my friends, along with calling me all those nasty things!" She shouted, with the guy doing his best to stand back up.

"And if I do-"

"And if you don't I'm going to dislocate every joint in your pathetic body!"

"Ha, I'd like to see a slut like you try," The man said getting into a fighting stance.

"Dear god dude you just signed your death certificate," Reid stammered backing away slowly with Sia, Wally, and Philly backing away with him.

Just like before, Cami had closed a fairly decent gap in an instant and had grabbed the man's index finger, bending it indiscriminately, with several cracks heard echoing through the woods.

"The fuck did you just say?" Cami whispered to the man who looked like he was trying to scream but had his voice stolen from him. "I asked you a question!"

"Nothing!" The man whimpered.

"Great. Now, just like I said before. You're going to leave your pokemon here and you're going to march your ass straight down to the Oldale police station. Now when I read the paper when I get to Petalburg city, I expect to see something about a guy with a dislocated finger turning himself in, in the police reports. GOT IT?" Cami boomed with the man nodding furiously and dropping the great ball at her feet.

"Now get out of here! Before I decide to break more fingers!" She yelled with the man running like a madman in the other direction. "And when you get there, tell 'em Cami sent ya!"

Reid and the others peeked around from the tree they were all hiding behind after hearing all the yelling had ceased.

"You guys can come out now, I've vented," She said crossing her arms.

"Code green?" Reid asked, still behind the trees.

"God da- yes code green." Cami said slightly annoyed and everybody waddled out from their hiding spot.

"Well that certainly was an interesting experience," Reid said as they all regrouped.

"It could be called that." Sia said as he hopped back onto Reid's shoulder.

"You're scary," Was all Philly could muster up to say.

"I'm going to have to agree. And how exactly do you know he'll turn himself in?" Wally asked.

"He will," Cami replied picking up the great ball the man had dropped. It was still set to red level.

"Okay so there's a way around all the legal bullshit that we'd have to go through to transfer this beldum." She said walking over towards a large pile of rocks.

"And what would that be?" Wally asked as Cami placed the ball on one of the rocks.

"This," She said as she picked up a large rock, or more like a boulder, and dropped it on top of the ball, smashing it into tiny pieces with a small explosion that followed suit.

"I guess that works," Reid chuckled expecting nothing more than brute force from her.

"Now, what do we do with that little guy?" Wally asked.

"Well, it's hurt pretty badly so let's heal it up," Reid said digging through his backpack and pulling out the orange bottled medicine.

Walking over to the tree where the beldum was implanted, Reid did his best to pull the steel type out of the tree.

"Wally, help me pull it out!" Reid yelled as he tried to yanked to no avail.

"Gotcha."

The two did their best to pull it out, but were disappointed when they couldn't even make it move.

"Umm, well this is a problem," Wally murmured rubbing the back of his head.

"Well since it's technically a wild pokemon, why not just capture it with your own pokeballs?" Cami asked with the two guys slapping their heads.

"That's...brilliant, thanks…" Reid sighed feeling like he should start eating paste.

Pulling one of his pokeballs off his belt, he walked up to the beldum, still lodged in the tree, and tapped it with the pokeball. A red aura surrounded the back half of the pokemon and it instantly disappeared into the pokeball. It waddled for a few moments before clicking with a soft ping.

"Okay, I've got a beldum now," Reid said as he released the pokemon back onto the ground to heal it.

"So Wally, you know how to use this stuff right?" Reid asked as he handed him the bottle.

"Yeah, it's very simple, just apply the medicine to the wounded are, but in the case of this beldum," He said looking over the badly wounded, unconscious steel type "I say just spray the whole body down."

Wally started to spray each of the cuts on the beldum's body, with many of the cuts and black, goo like blood healing up.

"Philly, can you flip this little guy over?" Wally asked with Philly nodding and straining to do its task.

"Here we can help you know," Cami said walking over to the scene.

"Nooo. No you can't. This little guy weighs half a ton. He ain't going anywhere. I don't even know why I tried to pull it out of that tree. God that would have ended really badly if we'd managed to move it," Wally said as the beldum now had its stomach exposed and he continued to spray it down.

"Geez, even though it has a steel body, those leaves sure left a mark," Cami said as she watched a large chunk of steel regrow on its body.

"Wow, that stuff really does wonders," Reid gawked at how fast the healing process was taking place.

The beldum began to wiggle a bit, groaning slightly as it slowly opened its eye.

"I, failed," it mumbled slipping back into unconsciousness.

"Damn. Even in this condition it was still worried about its performance. What kind of person would do this to a pokemon?" Reid asked aloud.

"The kind that deserves more than one broken finger," Cami pouted as she took the bottle of medicine from Wally. "This stuff works on us too right?" She asked getting a nod back from Wally.

She sprayed the medicine on the cut on her leg, wincing from how much it stung, but quickly sighed in relief after the cut had healed, leaving a small, but mostly unnoticeable scar.

"Alright," Reid started as he returned the beldum to its pokeball "now that this whole ordeal is over, shall we carry on?" getting nods from everybody.

They started walking again, with Sia and Philly reclaiming their spots on their trainers' shoulders. After a bit of walking, Reid decided it was best to ask his question now while the topic was still fresh in mind.

"So Wally, you're a fairly new trainer right?" Reid asked getting a nod in response. "How did you do so well during that whole, mugging I guess you could call it. You took charge so well it's like you've been doing it for years."

"I guess you could say I'm a natural leader," He chuckled slightly.

"No kidding, you were on top of the ball the entire time dude," Cami spoke.

"Oh you flatter me," He joked.

"And Philly, you're damn strong too, being just a tiny little Ralts." Cami praised, getting a mixed reaction from him.

"Thank you?" He said, (or asked) not sure how to take the backhanded compliment.

"Well you get my point," Cami said as Reid and Wally chuckled in the background.

"He's a strong one I tell ya. We practiced a long time getting that magical leaf attack down," Wally said petting Philly's head.

"Well seeing as how he chipped steel with them, yeah, it's evident," Reid commented.

"Well Sia did a great job with that follow up attack too. That pursuit is what really finished the job, so really, we owe the battle to you Sia," Wally said making Sia smirk like he was a big shot.

"Well, that's true, but to be fair, it was Philly who did most of the damage," Sia said getting a thumbs up back from Philly.

"Still, why do you think that guy with the cloak attacked us like that?" Wally asked.

"Probably just some thug," Cami said putting her arms behind her back.

"He was dressed pretty weird for being just an average thug. And did you guys hear him say something about acquiring Devon parts?" Wally asked getting confused looks from Cami and Reid.

"Like the Devon company?" Reid asked.

"I'm not sure, but I could have sworn I heard him say something about Devon parts," Wally said as he kicked a pebble across the path.

"Well, something else to note, you guys see the giant M on his shirt?" Reid asked getting nods from Cami and Wally. "Well I think I heard on the news that Team Aqua and Team Magma were having skirmishes just outside Rustboro, you think this guy was out part of that?"

"Well we're pretty far away from Rustboro, but now that you mention it, he's gotta be a part of that Team Magma. The red cloak, the giant M; it all adds up pretty well I'd say," Wally spoke getting approving nods from the rest.

"Isn't Devon headquarters in Rustboro too though?" Reid asked.

"Yeah, it is. So why do you think this guy was out so far away from the pack?" Cami thought aloud as they all continued down the path with the same gloomy skies above.

* * *

"Damn, all this walking has been butcher on my legs," Reid panted as he dropped his gear on the ground, with Sia hopping off as well.

They'd continued walking for the past 6 hours and finally decided to set up camp for the night in a slight clearing on the side of the path. There was already a pre made fire pit, so Wally and Philly got straight to collecting wood for it while Reid and Cami took were in charge of setting up both of the tents and Sia had set out to gather some fresh fruit for their supper. The skies were still a dull gray except for a spot in the distance where little bits of orange sunrays were bleeding through.

"So, was today eventful enough for you?" Reid asked as he grabbed one of the tent's many support rods.

"Eh, not the first time I've beaten up a mugger," Cami replied, as she began to hammer a spoke into the ground.

"Why does that not surprise me?" Reid sighed.

"Really? Thought I'd at least get a gasp from ya," Cami laughed as she hammered another spike into the ground.

"Well, after being your punching bag in judo class for my entire Junior. High career, no, it really does not surprise me." Reid laughed, remembering all the ass kickings he'd received from her.

"Eh, I guess that's true," She said, grabbing the tarp that went over the tent. "Remember that time I made you cry? That was funny." She giggled, remembering all the screams like they'd happened just yesterday.

"Considering you'd dislocated my shoulder and leg at the same time, I think my response was more than appropriate," Reid cringed, remembering the pain he'd suffered that day.

"Well that's what ya get for peeping on me when I was changing," Cami laughed as they finished setting up the tent.

"You didn't lock the bathroom door! How was I supposed to know you were in there changing!" Reid scream furiously, making Cami laugh even harder.

"Ever hear of knocking Einstein?"

"God dammit," He sighed, unzipping his tent and throwing his gear inside.

"Why so loud?" Philly asked as he and Wally appeared from the tree line holding a large amount of wood.

"Wow, nice find," Cami said walking over to the fire pit.

Philly and Wally both set down their loads, Philly having been using his telepathic powers to hold it just let it fall to the ground.

"I'd say so," Wally said as he started to build a fire.

"So what's on the menu for tonight?" Cami asked with her stomach loudly growling afterwards as if on cue.

"Well," Wally started, "Whenever Sia gets ba-"

"Right here!" Sia yelled jumping down from a nearby tree with about a dozen large oran berries.

"Ahh perfect timing," Wally said as he struck his flint and steel, lighting the small twigs he'd gathered. "Cami would you mind handing me my frying pan?" He asked as Cami dug pulled it off the side of his backpack. "How's grilled magikarp and candied oran berries sound?" He asked with everyone's mouths starting to drool at those words. "I'll take that as a yes," He said looking through his backpack and digging out the vacuum sealed meat, looking like it'd been butchered just minutes ago.

"How the heck did you get that?" Reid said, excited for the first decent meal he'd have in a long time.

"Pokemon centers have a lot of amenities you know," Wally said cutting open the bag and placing the meat over the fire on the frying pan. "Give me like 10 minutes and I'll have it ready. Go get changed or something, I don't know."

"Well, I don't really have a change of clothes," Cami whimpered looking over at Reid who let out a sigh.

"I sleep in my boxers anyways, so I'll just loan you some of my clothes for the night okay?" He said as Cami nodded and walked into, and zipped up the tent.

Reid let out another sigh as he looked back to the sky, which was mostly dark gray and black now that the sun had set. There wasn't much light around either except for the roaring fire that Wally was cooking dinner over. There was a lot of rustling coming from the tent and assumed that Cami had found something she could wear. To think that she'd snuck out from her parents, god what a stupid thing to do. They were surely going to be worried, but because she was 16 there wasn't much they could do. She is an adult after all.

The sound of the tent zipper being undone made Reid glance back as Cami stepped out from the tent, and he could swear he felt blood flowing out his nose. Clad in nothing but one of Reid's T-shirts, Cami stepped out and walked up to him.

"Cam- wha-" Reid stuttered as Cami giggled slightly.

"What, I think it looks good on me. What, do you disagree?" She teased, walking seductively towards Reid.

"No- I, uh…" Was all Reid could muster up.

"Oh come on, we've gone swimming before, don't like this is a big deal," She giggled as she walked past him and towards the bonfire where Wally has the same reaction.

"God," Reid thought aloud, as he waddled over to the bonfire. "Why does she have to tease me all the bloody time?"

"Oh C'mon Wally, surely you've swam with girls before. Don't act like this is so scandalous," She laughed sitting down on one of the logs that was positioned around the fire.

"God, can you like, not do this while I'm cooking?" He asked with his face brighter than the bonfire.

"Man, guys are no fun." Cami sighed as she walked over to Reid. "So, while Wally is finishing up dinner, maybe we should check up on that beldum," Cami suggested seriously.

"Yeah, you're probably right." Reid said as he took the pokeball off his belt. "Hey Sia?" He yelled grabbing Sia's attention. "You mind coming over here while we take Beldum out? Just in case something happens?" Reid asked getting a nod in response.

"You should probably change it to red too. Just to be safe," Cami added with Reid nodding in agreement.

He set the pokeball level to red and looked around, making sure everyone was ready for whatever might happen. He hit the release button and in a flash of white light, the large, blue steeled creature landed on the road with a thud.

"Owww," It groaned loudly as it sank deeper into the soft dirt.

"Hey, umm beldum? Are you okay?" Reid asked in a soft tone, trying to sound as friendly as possible.

"Please, don't hurt me too much," It whimpered, giving concerned looks to Reid and Cami.

"We're not going to hurt you buddy. We're trying to make sure you healed alright from the medicine," Cami said in a soothing tone.

"Medicine?"

"Yeah, you were hurt pretty badly so we gave you some medicine," Reid spoke as he reached his hand out towards the large steel object.

As Reid placed his hand on it, it let out a soft whimper until it noticed Reid wasn't hurting it. The man, wasn't hurting him?

"Wai- where's Oakley?" Beldum asked.

"He's gone now. Nobody's going to hurt you anymore," Cami said as she too began to pet Beldum.

"Oakley is...gone?"

"Gone forever buddy. From now on, we're going to be taking care of you, and that means not hurting you too," Reid said as Beldum began to float up from the ground.

As it raised above the ground, it turned slowly, using it's big red eye to look over Reid and Cami. It noticed their sincere looks, their open arms, the happy smiles. These people really weren't going to hurt him after all.

"Let me introduce myself. I'm Reid. I'm your new trainer," He said getting a wide eyed look from the Beldum.

"You're...you're my trainer?" It asked as Reid held up the pokeball, still on the red setting.

"That's right. And this fine lady over here is Cami," Reid said, pointing over to her as she gave it a wave.

"Hi there Beldum," She said taking her hand off its back.

"Oh, and this here is Sia," Reid said pointing towards him, with Beldum looking him over, as if analyzing him.

"Pokerus?" It asked getting a nod back.

"Well that saves another five minutes of explaining," Reid chuckled. "Oh, and the green haired guy over by the fire is Wally and the little ralts is Philly," Reid finished with Beldum nodding, or more bobbing in response.

"Do you happen to have a name?" Cami asked grabbing its attention.

"Yeah, my name is Zeitgeist." Beldum said with a bit more energy as it began to hover around a bit more, exploring the area.

"Zeitgeist?" Reid asked looking over to Cami who just shrugged at him.

Reid began to feel the headaches setting in from having his mental bond on red for so long. Glancing over at Zeitgeist, who was just staring down the long pathway, Reid decided that it was alright to turn it to blue. As he flipped the switch, he noticed that Zeitgeist immediately turned towards him.

"Th- thank you," Zeitgeist stammered, getting a warm smile back from Cami and Reid.

"Don't worry, you're safe now." Reid said as he walked over to it. "Now, would you like to join us by the fire?"

"May I just rest in my pokeball for a bit?" Zeitgeist asked as Reid nodded, hitting the retrieve button and returning Zeitgeist to the ball in the blink of an eye.

Reid looked over the ball, glad that one, he'd not only freed the poor thing from a clearly abusive owner, but also now had a new member to his team. Maybe he might just stand a chance at the tournament after all.

"Well that went better than I thought it would," Cami said as she rested her arm on Reid's shoulder.

"Yeah, I think after a bit of time to clear its head, it'll be fine," Reid said as he started to walk with Cami back to the fire.

"So," Wally asked as they approached him "Who's ready to eat?"

On the frying pan, sat perfectly cooked magikarp, with chunks of grilled oran berries sauted all over it. The smell was both salty and sweet that it made Reid feel like he was floating on a cloud. Philly levitated a few paper plates, along with silverware to everybody, making the meal seem all the more heavenly. As they all sat down on the logs, Philly levitated everyone chunks of the meat, not spilling a drop of the sauce or anything. If it wasn't for the fact that he was in the middle of the woods and eating on a paper plate, Reid could have sworn he was at a five star restaurant. Reid salivated over the meat on his plate, the aroma being better than anything he'd had in at least the past year. As he took a bite, he about let a tear out from how juicy, and flavorful it was. The ocean salt and the berry sugar mixing created such a unique and unexplainable sensation that Reid couldn't possibly describe.

* * *

"Wally, please. Just marry me right now," Cami sighed as she rubbed her stomach.

"I'd like to propose too," Reid said as he let out an audible belch.

"Oh you flatter me," Wally blushed as he put his silverware back into his backpack.

"Dude, seriously, please cook for me, like forever," Cami said as she sat up.

"Well as long as we travel together, I'd certainly love to," He said with a light laugh.

"So fucking glad I met you dude," Reid said as sat up as well.

"Oh, by the way, I hope you guys don't mind leftovers tomorrow for lunch," He said getting ferocious nods from everybody, even Sia, who was still finishing up his meal.

Wally glanced over to Philly, who'd fallen asleep on the ground not to long ago.

"I think I'm gunna call it a night. See you guys in the morning," He said scooping up Philly and headed inside his tent.

Reid glanced over to Cami who was still reminiscing over the meal she'd just had. The dying light of the fire's embers making her blonde hair almost twinkle in the blackness of the woods.

"Hey, you ready to call it a night too?" Reid asked her as she glanced back at him.

"Yeah I think so. I'm about to pass out from exhaustion anyways, might as well be comfortable when I hit the ground," She joked, getting up and walking over to their tent with Reid and Sia following.

Cami entered the tent first, which made Reid feel a bit uncomfortable and he remembered something.

"Hey umm, I still need to change. Mind stepping out for a sec?" He asked as she looked up to him.

"Just do it in here, I won't peek too much," She winked making Reid blush even harder than before.

"Look I'm being serious," He complained as Cami dug out the blanket and pillow from his backpack.

"And so am I," She giggled as she dove underneath the covers. "See, not peeking!"

Reid let out a heavy sigh as he walked into the tent with Sia right behind him. He had to bend over slightly, so taking off his shirt was a bit challenging. As he unzipped his pants, he heard a bit of giggling coming from underneath the blanket which made him let out another groan.

" _God why'd she have to tease me so much?"_

He pulled off his pants, leaving him with nothing on but his crimson boxers. As he tossed his clothes to the far side of the tent, he grabbed his sleeping bag and unravled it as fast as he could, all the while battling the urge to get a boner as Cami giggled underneath the blanket. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he was in his sleeping bag. He managed to grab out one of the sweatshirts he'd packed as a makeshift pillow since Cami had stolen his, and was finally able to lay down.

"Alright, I'm done," Reid said with a stutter, still with a strong hue of red on his face.

"Bout time, it was getting hot underneath this thing," Cami complained as she poked her head out.

"You didn't see anything did you?" Reid asked nervously with Cami giving him a humored look.

"Isn't that what the girls are supposed to ask?" She laughed making Reid grow even brighter.

"Can you stop teasing me for one goddamn minute?" He begged, as an evil grin grew on her face.

She reached her arms behind her back and wiggled them around. Reid had no clue what she was doing until she pulled her bra out and tossed it over to him.

"Forgot, I hate sleeping with that thing on," She said with a straight face, only making Reid groan louder.

"God dammit," Reid sighed as he rolled on his side and tried to fall asleep.

"Hey Reid?" Cami asked a minute later, breaking the silence.

"Yeah?" He groaned with his back still turned to her.

"Thanks for everything," She whispered.

Reid rolled over and looked at her, seeing she had a genuine smile on her face.

"Yeah, it's no big deal. It's nice having you here anyways," He said as he let a smile grow on his face too.

"You think our journey is going to improve our lives?" She asked as Reid thought about it for a moment.

"I don't see why it wouldn't. In just one day, we've hung out more together than we have in the past month, we beat up a mugger, saved an abused Beldum, and had the greatest meal we've probably ever had in our lives. So you know what, yeah I think our journey is going to improve our lives," he said, staring deep into her green eyes.

"You've got a point there," She said as broke their gaze and looked up. "I mean, the reason we're doing this is to have a chance to escape out broken lives right?" She asked getting a nod from Reid. "And you want this to work out?" She asked getting another nod in response.

"Yeah. I didn't have much to live for back home. It was the same bland routine everyday. Wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed and repeat. This way at least I have a bit of hope in my life you know?" He said laying back down. "So that hopefully I can have a better life."

"I guess you could say this is our journey of hope huh?" Cami asked as she looked back over to Reid who was staring into space.

"Heh, I guess you could call it that," He chuckled as he looked back over to Cami.

They both stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Neither of them growing any more tired. They just stared at each other, feeling like they were both a part of something more.

"Can I tell you something Reid?" Cami asked as she scooted a bit closer to Reid.

"What would that be?" He asked, having no clue what she would wanted to say.

"Well, umm…" She stuttered, not quite sure how to phrase what she wanted to say.

"What's up?" Reid asked as he scooted a bit closer to her.

"I, well...just wanted to tell you…" She stuttered.

"Yeah?"

"You look really cute in Crimson." She grinned as she dove under her blanket, leaving Reid as red as his boxers.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Reid awoke to the sound of rustling in his tent. As he slowly opened his eyes, he glanced around the tent. He noticed that Cami was still asleep underneath her blanket and was letting faint snores escape. It wasn't until he'd sat up and looked around the tent that he'd noticed Sia, who was digging through his backpack. A few things were scattered across the floor of the tent, but it was organized enough to tell that Sia was being careful with his stuff. Turning to the front of the tent that had part of the screen door open showed that the sun was just barely rising over the horizon, and that it was still fairly early in the morning.

"Oh, sorry Reid. Did I wake you up?" Sia asked as Reid turned back to him.

"Yeah, but that's fine. We're supposed to get up early today so I don't see any harm done," Reid said as he stretched his arms and Sia went back to searching through the backpack. "You looking for something to eat?"

"I was kind of hoping to have some of that trail mix you packed but I can't find it," Sia complained, pulling out a bottle of medicine and setting it aside.

"I'm pretty sure Wally's making breakfast."

"You know what he's making?" Sia asked turning to face Reid.

"I'm pretty sure he's grilling fruit or something like that," Reid said as he stood up and walked over to the clothes he'd taken off the night before in that whole embarrassing charade.

"She always tease you like that?" Sia asked, remembering how Cami had treated his trainer the night before.

"Whenever we're alone she likes to do do stuff like that," Reid responded, going over memories of all the times she'd teased him.

It wasn't always so drastic like it'd been last night. It would usually be something like her dragging a finger down his back or getting a little bit too cozy whenever they would watch t.v. together.

"Well as long it's all in good faith," Sia said walking over to the opening of the tent. "I'm going to go gather some berries. Be back in a bit."

"Sure thing," Reid said as Sia walked out and closed the opening. "Be careful too!" Reid yelled as he could hear Sia's footsteps running into the distance.

"Ever hear of whispering?" Cami groaned as she slumped up.

Reid chuckled at her appearance. Her hair was almost in an afro from the static and she had a bit of drool hanging down from her chin. It was pretty cute seeing her in a more, natural state.

"And damn, I haven't slept that hard since I ran the marathon," She said as she began to stretch.

Reid's mouth simply hung open during her routine. Everytime she would stretch, the t-shirt would show her erect nipples. Reid, wanted to look away, to not think about it, but couldn't bare himself to do the task.

"You sure don't try to hide the fact that you're staring at my tits," She laughed as she continued to stretch, only more slowly and with a bit more seductive flair to it.

Snapping out of his trance, he quickly darted his head as to not make eye contact.

"It's your fault for not wearing a bra!" Reid retaliated, only to get a chuckle back from Cami.

"Did I ever say I didn't like you looking at them?" She asked while grabbing for her discarded bra.

"I-uh-" Reid stuttered as his face grew red again.

"By the way, you have a really cute butt," She giggled as Reid looked down in horror to see he hadn't put his pants on and was, once again, standing in front of Cami in his boxers.

He wasn't sure how to respond. Before he thought that Cami wasn't peeking, but now, he was standing directly in front of her in nothing but his boxers.

"God dammit," Reid sighed as he reached for his pants and began to put them on.

Never before in his life had he felt so humiliated before. Basically naked in front of the girl he had known all his life, and had crushed on for longer than he could remember, and she was laughing at him.

"Hey relax," Cami said as Reid pulled up his pants and put on his pokebelt. "You know, I don't care if you see me like this," Cami said a bit more seriously, trying to make him feel a bit better about the whole situation he was in.

"Not helping…" Reid groaned as he put his shoes on and walked for the opening.

"Hey come on, chill out. I'm just messing with you," Cami said, feeling a bit more worried seeing his mood hadn't changed.

Reid started to unzip the fly of the tent and took a step out. It was fairly cold, being that it was probably only 5:00 in the morning, but the rays of sun that did hit his bare chest were warm and he welcomed them.

"Hey Reid come back," Cami said as she stood up.

"Cami I don-"

"Just come here for a damn minute," Cami yelled, making Reid flinch at how serious she was being.

He sighed and walked back into the tent, zipping it up so that it wouldn't get too cold inside.

He took off his shoes and sat back down on his sleeping back facing Cami who had an apologetic look in her eyes.

"Look-" She said touching Reid's arm "I'm sorry. I went a bit too far this time."

"Hey," Reid cut in feeling a bit bad for how harshly he'd reacted "it's fine. I...I'm just...not used to those kinds of situations."

"Really?" Cami asked, sounding a bit surprised. "You've never been with a girl?"

"Never even had a girlfriend before, so no why would I?" Reid said as he grabbed one of his shirts and started to put it on.

"I could have sworn I've seen you with girls before though," Cami trailed, still stunned by this news.

"I mean I had a few female co-workers that I hung out with from time to time, but it was nothing serious," Reid said as he sat back down in front of Cami.

"Huh. All this time I thought you were going out with a bunch of different girls," She mumbled as she trailed off into space with Reid getting up to leave.

Reid let out a sigh, "Alright, well I think I'm gonna go wake up Wally so we can get breakfast started and get on the road."

"Before you go though," Cami asked as she spun him around to face her, "hug?"

"Put on some pants and I'll think about it," Reid chuckled as he unzipped the tent fly and stepped out again.

"Fine, but keep your peeping eyes out while I'm changing," Cami whined as she rezipped the fly back up. `

"Oy…" Reid groaned as he walked over to Wally's tent, but was surprised to find that Wally and Sia were already cooking on the fire. "So what all are you cooking?"

"Oh, morning Reid, just grilling a bunch of berries that Sia picked," Wally said as Reid walked over and stood over the pan.

"I've been helping too," Sia complained as Wally nodded in support.

"Yeah he's been passing me spices and stuff," Wally said as he sprinkled some kind of powder of the grilled fruit.

"What'd you put on them?" Reid asked.

"Just a bit of cinnamon and sugar, nothing too crazy," Wally said as he picked up a piece with a fork. "Wanna try?"

"I'll wait for everybody else to get a plate," Reid said as he sat down next to Sia. "Hey, where's Philly at?"

"He's exploring. He likes to do that while I cook breakfast," Wally replied as he stirred the fruit around.

"That guy sure is a wildcard," Reid said as he noticed Cami coming out of his tent.

"I smell something awesome!" Cami yelled as she ran over to them.

"Grilled and spiced fruits," Reid said as he went to grab everybody plates from Wally's backpack.

After he passed them out, Wally served his grilled fruit. After just one bite, Reid was already in love. The cinnamon and sugar blended so well with the fruits caramelized sugars. Not to mention the fact that they were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

"Wally. Please. Never leave us," Cami cried as she savored the fruits flavor.

"Well, with all these compliments it'd be hard to," He laughed, taking a bite of his own fruit.

"So where did you learn to cook like this?" Reid asked as he ate another bite.

"Well," Wally began, "For a while my mom was sick, so it was up to me and my two sisters to do the housework. I got cooking duty and I guess it took off from there."

"You don't get this good just from cooking in the kitchen a few times," Cami gargled through her chomping.

"Well most of these are my grandma's recipes, if that's what you're getting at," Wally laughed as he took another bite of an oran berry.

"You're grandma's an amazing woman!" Reid cried as he bit into a pecha berry.

"I'm sure she would thank you for that."

After everyone had probably eaten few dozen berries, they packed up their gear and continued down the path towards Petalburg. By the time they had left it was nearing six in the morning. Since Wally had the map, he said if they hiked for most of the day and took short breaks they'd probably make it to the center by nightfall. Unfortunately for them, the day hadn't gone over all that smoothly.

Reid had tried letting Zeitgeist out of its pokeball to check up on the Beldum. Instead of the nervous, yet collected Beldum he'd seen the night before, it cried out his name, and tried to give him a "hug" that probably broke a couple of his ribs. After taking an hour breather and assuring everyone that his lungs hadn't collapsed, they continued onwards with Zeitgeist being out with the red setting on. It put a lot of strain on Reid but he thought it was worth it to keep his skeleton intact.

If that stop hadn't been bad enough well then it got progressively worse that afternoon. Cami had accidently stepped on a Breloom's tail as they were walking down the path which, needless to say ticked it off. Philly had tried to fight it off, and actually did a fairly decent job doing so. That was until he was taken out in one hit by the Breloom's seed bomb attack. Sia hadn't fared any better and eventually fainted after getting hit by a barrage of mach punches. So after a failed fight they all ran for their lives as an angry Breloom hunted them down. Somehow they had managed to lose it, but seeing as how they were down two pokemon with only Zeitgeist left to protect all of them, they were all watching where they walked.

And just to spite them, karma struck back for the third time that day. It had started raining around three making the path muddy, and hard to follow. Cami, since she had snuck out, had nothing to protect her from the rain which ultimately led to Reid giving her his only rain coat. Zeitgeist was apparently thrilled by the rain because it was jiggling side to side as much as he could with the red level still in effect and had the cheeriest look in its eye.

After another hour of trekking, Reid was now drenched and shivering, Cami had lost a shoe in the mud, their food had been soaked because Wally had forgotten to zip his backpack shut, and now there was somebody caped in dark blue in front of them yelling at them to do something.

"What?" Reid groaned as the man stormed up to him.

"I said hand over your pokemon before I hurt you!" The man yelled.

"Oh right," Reid mumbled through his shivering. "Cami I'm too wet and tired to deal with this guy, would you mind?"

Three broken fingers, lots of crying, and another new member to the group later, the gang continued on their slugged march. They were all even in too wet and depressed of a mood to see what pokemon they had disarmed the man of. Thankfully after another half hour of trudging, the rain had stopped and the city was miraculously within view. After they had all collapsed in the pokemon center, their pokemon were taken into the emergency room to be treated, they were all given a hot meal with coco, Cami was given a new pair of shoes, and Reid was given antibiotics for the pneumonia that was setting in.

They had all taken their food to the lounge. There were a few couches in front of a large tv that was showing the news. A few people were sitting down, and one even had her Minun out with her. They all sat together on one of the couches that wasn't taken and started watching the news while they ate.

"I miss your cooking already," Cami complained as she took a bite of the grilled magikarp she had been given.

"I'm flattered," Wally laughed, poking around his salad.

"I miss not being sick," Reid groaned, sipping at his coco.

"Oh relax, it's not like you're going to die," Cami laughed as she punched Reid in the arm.

"Actually about 1% of people die from-"

"Please just sto- **ACHOO** -stop," Reid complained as he wiped his nose. "By the way Wally, didn't you say we'd get here at nightfall? It's not even six yet."

"Guess I just read the map wrong," He shrugged nonchalantly, going back to his salad.

"Well I'm just glad you did. That turned out to be like the only good thing that happened today," Cami said, poking at her fish.

"Well we free another pokemon from what I assume was a Team Aqua member," Wally added as he dug the pokeball out of his backpack. "Wonder what's in it."

"Set it to red and find out." Reid mumbled as he finished off his coco.

"Ooh can I open it?" Cami pleaded as Wally shrugged, passing the ball over.

Cami proceeded to set the pokeball to red and let whatever was inside out. The trouble started when a Carvana appeared and flailed around until it sank its razor sharp teeth into Reid's leg. Reid let out a blood curdling scream, grabbing everybody's attention. It wasn't a moment later that, not only was he having his leg ripped off by a Carvana, but dozens of volts of electricity were now surging through him too.

Reid collapsed on the floor, having been paralyzed from the electricity, and still in shock from the stinging pain coming from his leg. There was blood flowing everywhere and he could hear lots of screaming. All of it started fading though, and before he could process anything else, his vision went black, and his body went limp.

* * *

Reid awoke to a blinding white light. Recalling the events that had recently too place he assumed that it was just the hospital lights. That was until he rubbed his and took a long look around and saw that _everything_ was white. Like it was a never-ending plane of white light. He looked around, trying to get a grasp for what was happening. He stood up and quickly realized that his leg wasn't hurting anymore. That was followed by him collapsing back on the white floor (if you could call it that). He looked back down to his leg, only to see that his foot was gone. He quickly rolled up his pant leg, finding that his leg was now a stump at his knee. Panicked, Reid darted his glance everywhere, hoping to find a person that would explain what was going on.

" _Oh I do hope I haven't startled you too much,"_ an echoey voice boomed from out of nowhere.

Reid fell back again, surprised by the sudden booming voice that he couldn't find the source to.

"Who-who's there?" Reid stuttered as he kept turning around, trying to see who was talking to him.

" _I am here,_ " The voice echoed again.

"Well that's good to know," Reid deadpanned as he continued his search. "Got a name there Mr. Voice-in-my-head?"

" _Yes._ "

"..."

"..."

"Well are you going to tell me your name?" Reid asked, annoyed by the voice's specific nature. "And also why I'm missing half my leg?"

" _I've received many names throughout my lifetime. Controller of Dimensions, Ruler of the Universe, Creator of everything, Arceus, God…"_

"Okay, I'm talking to god. So I'm dreaming right now. I guess that explains the leg," Reid trailed as he inspected his stump.

" _The only reason you can talk to me is because I transferred your consciousness here while your body was unconscious,_ " The voice echoed, grabbing Reid's attention again.

"What is that even supposed to mean?" Reid yelled.

" _I would think that you'd know."_

"Well ya thought wrong," Reid deadpanned.

" _In any case, it means that I brought you here for a reason._ "

"And what would that be?"

" _To inform you of the path you must take to save the world."_

"...What kind of drugs is that center pumping in me?!"

" _As of right now that would be morphine, along with other sedatives I am not familiar with."_

"Oy…"

" _How could I possibly get you to listen to me on a serious note then?"_

"If you're god then shouldn't you know how?"

" _All I did was create life. I did not create the universe and I am not all knowing._ "

"Well there goes religion…"

" _I admit that human religions are interesting. These people blindly follow something that has never shown itself to them."_

"Which brings up the question, why are you showing yourself to me?"

" _I use all the power in my existence to maintaining those you call legendaries. Some have the power to destroy galaxies by shouting. Needless to say, I'm very busy."_

"That doesn't answer my question," Reid deadpanned.

" _I've already given you the answer. You must follow your destiny to save the world."_

"Which is?"

" _To stop those that wish to use the power of my children to control the planet."_

"And that would be who exactly?"

" _Those that go by the name Aqua and Magma."_

Reid burst out into laughter, falling backwards onto the white nothingness behind him. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This voice that was apparently god, was telling him that _he_ had to stop both Team Aqua _and_ Team Magma. He had only started training two days ago and apparently beating up a couple thugs qualified him for Savior of Earth.

" _I do not see how this is a laughing matter,"_ The voice echoed again and Reid calmed himself down again.

"You want me to stop _two_ terrorist groups! That's what's funny!" Reid yelled, letting a couple more chuckles escape. "I haven't even been training for two days. What on Earth makes me the hero?"

" _Your passion for your friends and what you believe is right."_

"Tha-that's it? I have a decent mindset so god is making me his holy warrior!" Reid yelled sarcastically, clearly annoying the voice that was talking to him.

" _Why must you be so difficult?"_

"Because, I'm not a hero," Reid shouted in retaliation. "I'm a below average guy with a Treecko and a Beldum. You really think that I'm going to buy the idea that god is telling me that I'm going to save the world?!"

Everything changed. The endless white plane was gone and was replaced with a new horrifying scene. Reid was back in the pokemon center, and was looking at his unconscious body lying on an operating table. Blood had stained the sheets that his body was lying on and was collecting in puddles beneath the table. Reid looked around, noticing there were nearly a dozen people looking at him through a large window on the side of the room.

Most of the people he recognized from the lounge, but Cami, Wally, Philly, and Sia stuck out like a sore thumb. Cami had tears in her eyes and was leaning against Wally like he was a cane. Wally didn't look like he minded that, but Reid could see the pain in his eyes too. Sia and Philly were both standing on the small ledge behind the window, and Sia looked petrified. He wasn't moving at all. Reid didn't even know if he was breathing.

" _You're welcome."_

Reid turned his head to see a small, blue orb hovering behind him. He assumed that it was "god" and turned back to the scene in front of him. Limping back up and leaning against one of the walls, Reid looked back to the blue orb.

"The hell am I looking at?" Reid boomed, trying not to let the panic set in.

" _You are looking at what is happening right now. Since you had doubts about me, I'm demonstrating some of my power to you."_

"And how do I know if this isn't some sick nightmare?" Reid yelled at the orb.

" _Take a good look at your friends,"_ the voice echoed as Reid turned back to them. " _Ask them if that was how they were standing when you wake up."_

"Science can kind of explain out of body experiences yo-"

" _And when the doctors tell you that you shouldn't have lived that attack?"_

"What do you mean by that? I just got bit by a Carvana."

" _Nearly two dozen, inch long teeth were driven into your leg. Both major arteries in your leg were severed. The center had to amputate your leg to even get the bleeding under control. They had no idea what your blood type was, and no medical history of you besides what little information was on that license of yours. You would have bled out in less than 5 minutes, but I kept you alive for twenty-six so the doctors could operate."_

"Wait," Reid said looking back down at his stumped leg "they cut off my right leg?!"

" _Would you have rather died?"_

"No, but… I don't want this either!"

He looked back to the window where his friends were. Some of the people had left but his friends were all still there; Sia in the same, petrified look.

" _You must stay strong Reid. This is only the beginning of the long journey ahead of you."_

"And why the hell am I going to continue this journey!? I'm two days in and I lost half my leg!"

" _Because if you don't, Cami will never forgive herself for this, Wally will stop his journey, and Sia will end up killing himself."_

"What?!"

" _I do not know if that is how things will play out if you end your journey, but judging their conscious's and what they all value, I would say that result is inevitable."_

"...So, I don't have much say in this do I?"

" _Of course you do. But what you decide to do will impact what the future will hold."_

"Alright, fine I'll continue my journey. Might be hard to do without a leg but whatever. If my friends get to stay sane I can deal with hopping."

" _The solution will come when you wake up."_

"I don't like where this is headed."

" _Stay strong Reid York. Keep with your friends and your power will grow. The well being of the future is in your hands."_

"I'll keep that in mind," Reid said as he turned back to the orb, only to see that it was gone.

He turned back to the scene, but was faced with the same white plane from earlier. He rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of everything, but opened them to solid blackness. Everything was dark, and in a void of nothingness.

* * *

Reid slowly opened his eyes, light blinding him yet again. Only this time, when he looked around, he was on an operating table. Crimson was a prevalent color as he looked around the room. It was on the walls, puddling on the floor, and on his sheets.

"Oh right…" Reid sighed as he pulled away the sheet to reveal the one thing that he wished wasn't real in his dream.

His leg had been amputated at the knee. It didn't hurt to much, in fact Reid couldn't feel anything. He turned and noticed the needles laying around. Not to mention the fact that he was on an IV drip. He dropped back into the bed, not quite sure of what he was going to say when he say his friends next.

"REID!" He jumped as one of the doors on the sides opened and Cami burst through, followed by Wally, Philly, and Sia.

"Hey guys-" Reid tried to get out as Cami bear hugged him.

"Dear god Reid you almost died!" Cami cried as Sia hopped next to him, just as teary eyed.

"To be honest, you should have," Wally budged in, standing next to Cami.

"Guys I'm fine. A bit numb and missing a leg, but I'm fine," He tried to get out as Cami continued to bury her head in his chest.

"I'm so stupid! You lost your leg because I was too stupid not to expect something like that!" She cried as Reid tried to comfort her the best he could.

So far his dream was seeming pretty accurate. Wally looked traumatized, Sia was still just as petrified as the Sia from his dream, and Cami was taking all the blame on herself.

"Cami, I'm still here aren't I?" Reid asked not calming her down at all. "I'm alright."

"Stop saying that Reid!" Cami yelled as tears started flowing down her eyes. "This isn't like the fourth grade when you lost an eyebrow; that grew back at least. Reid I made you lose your freaking leg!" She cried going back into his chest.

"Reid are you sure you're-"

"I'm being serious Wally, I'm fine."

"Stop saying that Reid!"

"Cami!" Reid yelled, instantly grabbing all their attentions and even breaking Sia out of his trance. "Look me in the eyes," He belted and she instantly did so. "Now listen to me. I. Am. Fine. Don't take the hit on yourself, you couldn't have done anything to prevent it."

"If I hadn't let it out then you-"

"Then I would have let it out myself," which was mostly a lie, "Cami, this was going to happen one way or another. Please don't take this too hard on yourself."

"But I-"

"Cami," He soothed, patting the back of her head "please don't. For me?"

She let out another short sniff and nodded.

"Okay, thank you," Reid sighed as he rolled around in the hospital bed. "So how much is this going to cost?" he asked finally getting comfortable in the bed.

"You have your insurance right?" Wally asked and Reid nodded back, "Well then it's free."

"At least that's some decent news." Reid said sarcastically. "By the way, what's happened to that Carvana anyways?"

"Well after you started screaming," Wally paused looking over to Cami, almost like he was asking for permission to go on, "Zeitgeist broke out of its pokeball and...went berserk on it."

"Well is it okay?" Reid asked getting awkward glances from the group.

"Zeitgeist killed it." Wally muttered not really sounding like he wanted to admit it. "Crushed it until it...until it was paste…"

"Oh," was all Reid could say.

Awesome. So now, not only was he was missing a leg, but Cami was more than likely taking all the blame for this, Sia might be suicidal, and Zeitgeist was more than willing to kill on Reid's behalf. Two days into his journey and this is what he was faced with. Guess training really isn't for the faint of heart.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

It'd been six days since Reid's 'incident' had occurred. During those days he'd been in and out of physical therapy, getting used to walking with a prosthetic leg, which was actually a lot easier to use than he thought it would be. Cami was still treating the whole thing like it was her fault, but she was finding ways to cope. Most of those ways involved clearing the center's supply of junk food, but they were ways none-the-less. Sia had broken out of his trance fairly early on and had decided to take out his rage on the center's training dummies, which he ended up destroying fairly early on as well. Thankfully Reid's insurance covered those expenses. He'd had a talk with both Wally and Philly and made sure they were doing okay since the incident. Wally said he was doing fine, but Reid could sense that he was lying a bit.

Then came the talk with Zeitgeist. Reid had purposefully been avoiding the subject because he didn't really want to confront the Beldum about what it had done. That was until Wally had forced it on him by releasing Zeitgeist in his room and then quickly leaving without saying another word. So now Reid was stuck in a room with a pokemon that apparently couldn't grasp the concept of overkill.

"Master?"

"You can call me Reid you know," Reid sighed as the steel creature floated over to his bed.

"Well that would be...improper wouldn't it?" It asked now hovering a few feet away from him.

"Why would that be improper?"

"My old master used to say that it was improper to call him anything but master," It said as it started to hover in circles.

"Why was that?"

"A respect thing? All I know is if I ever called him anything but master he'd rub dirt in my eye," Zeitgeist mumbled as it floated over to inspect some of the medical machinery in the corner.

"Well you know I wouldn't do that to you, right?"

"I know but it is what I'm used to."

"Oy, come here," Reid motioned and Zeitgeist quietly hovered over. "I'm not going to hurt you. That's only something people in a terrorist group would do, and I want you to know that I'm not going to do that," Reid finished as he put a hand on Zeitgeist's head.

Zeitgeist just bobbed a bit, which Reid took to be a nod.

"Now, onto more pressing issues," Reid said as he took his hand off it and sat up to face it. "Why did you kill that Carvanha?"

"You wouldn't want me to? Even if I saved your life in the process?" Zeitgeist asked with a questionable glance.

"I'll admit that you probably did help save my life," the thought of Arceus in his dreams still looming over "but that doesn't excuse the fact that you killed another pokemon, and with zero sense of the word overkill."

"But don't you eat meat?" Zeitgeist asked with Reid taking a step back on the subject.

"Tha-that's different. I eat meat because it's food. What you did doesn't qualify for that."

"But what I did saved you," it mumbled, turning away from Reid again.

"That's not the point. Why would you hurt something that badly anyways?" Reid questioned as Zeitgeist turned back towards him.

"It's what I was trained to do. Kill anything that Master told me to."

Reid was taken back by this. He hadn't expected anything so bold and up front. Sure he knew that Team Aqua and Magma did a lot of really dark stuff, murder included, but he hadn't expected a pokemon as collected as Zeitgeist to actually follow through with those orders. And thinking back to the day he had encountered that Magma member, it raised another question.

"If you were trained to kill, then why did you beg Oakly not to harm us?"

"Because I could sense no hostility from you. Except for Mistress Cami, she does seem to be very violent."

"So the Carvanha was-"

"It was out for blood the second you separated it from its trainer."

"...Well at least now I can sleep a bit more sound knowing that thing hadn't just bit me cause it was scared or something," Reid sighed as he lay back into his bed.

"I can promise you that it's intentions were completely hostile."

"Alright, but one last thing I want to talk to you about," Reid said as he put his hand back on Zeitgeist, "did you say Mistress Cami?"

* * *

Hobbling out of his room, Reid did his best to make it to the cafeteria where Wally and Cami were eating their lunches. As he approached the table, Wally was giving him as innocent of a look as possible. Which he was failing at. After Reid had finished slugging Wally in the arm and took his own seat, he grabbed a menu and started looking over the dozen or so options that he'd been picking from for nearly the past week. The only thing he'd ever really liked was the Mareep Chop Stew, which wasn't all that salty, and would probably be rated at a six and a half out of ten.

"So how'd it go with Zeitgeist?" Cami asked as she took a bite out of her roasted Magikarp, which Reid found funny because she would keep talking about how mediocre it was yet always chose it.

"Pretty well. It said the only reason it killed that Carvanha like that was because it was out for blood and Zeitgeist did what he was trained to do," Reid finished as he put down the menu to see Cami and Wally nodding.

"Makes sense I guess. I mean I was going to probably do the exact same thing to it for biting you and hitting you with a thunder fang, but hey, Zeitgeist beat me to the punch," She finished putting another piece of fish into her mouth.

"Yeah, I mean, I guess I probably wouldn't be alive if it weren't for Zeitgeist, so I guess it deserves the credit," Reid said as he finished typing his order on the touchscreen pad mounted on the wall next to their table. "Still haven't thanked it for saving me."

"Why do you guys keep calling Zeitgeist an 'it'?" Wally asked seeming a bit annoyed by the subject.

"Cause Beldum and its evolution line doesn't have a gender," Cami said bluntly, with Reid nodding in agreement.

"Well I know that, but what I'm saying is that Zeitgeist hasn't led the best life so far, and maybe we should be trying to help it by making it feel...alive I guess is the right term for this," Wally finished as Cami and Reid exchanged glances. "And maybe even a nickname too."

"You certainly are putting a lot of things forward," Reid said thinking about Wally's concerns. "I mean it wouldn't really hurt to call Zeitgeist a he, or she, whatever it wants. And what's this about a nickname?"

"Well don't you feel like the name Zeitgeist is a bit long?" Wally asked as a woman came out with Reid's stew. "I think he'd like it if we called him Zeit."

"While I agree with you on the length part," Cami started as she swallowed the food in her mouth, "is Zeit really a good nickname?"

"I don't see why not," Reid stated as he started eating his stew. "I like it. It's short and sweet."

"I think you're both crazy," Cami groaned as she fiddled a toothpick in her mouth.

"Well let's just ask Zeitgeist if he likes any of our ideas," Reid said as he pulled out Zeitgeist's pokeball.

Reid released Zeitgeist onto the ground below them with a bright flash. Zeitgeist looked up to the group with a curious glance, almost as if he knew what they were talking about.

"So Zeitgeist," Reid started and he bobbed towards him "We were wondering that, since you're part of the group now, would you like to be associated with a gender and get a nickname?"

Zeitgeist seemed a bit confused by the notion. The glance it made certainly reassured Reid of that though.

"Why do you wish to give me a gender when I have none?" Zeitgeist asked as he bobbed around the table, glaring at everybody with a cautious eye. "And what kind of nickname would you have in mind Master Reid?"

"First off, I told you to call me Reid, but I guess that will come with time. Secondly I'm gunna have Wally fill you in on that one," Reid finished with Wally seeming a bit panicked when Zeitgeist quickly dashed over to him.

"W-well, I mean if you're okay with that, that is," Wally stuttered.

Zeitgeist thought it over for a bit. Getting a nickname was probably harmless, and could be interesting depending on what it was. Although the whole associating itself with another gender was an odd request. It felt as though 'it' was a gender, and it felt a bit proud of that fact.

" _ **Would you please do it for the sake of me?"**_

" _But what is wrong with being an it?"_ Zeitgeist asked with the group looking around, wondering who he was talking to.

" _ **Do you know how hard and unnatural it feels to write when I call you an it instead of a he or a she? Please for my sake just pick a gender. I don't care just which it is, but please for my sake, and the audiences too, pick one."**_

" _But-"_

" _ **I'm breaking the fourth wall here. I promised myself I'd try to find a way around this, but I established you as an 'it' chapters ago; and your gender isn't something you just turn your back to. So you do this for me or I'll write in a Houndoom that will roast your ass every chance I can get."**_

" _Jesus, fine do what you want...friggin sadist…"_

" _ **Hmm?"**_

" _I said you're a sadist."_

" _ **I know I am. Now get back into character. The others are scared and the readers are probably getting annoyed by this."**_

Zeitgeist gave a defeated sigh and glanced around the room, taking in all the confused looks. Reid, Cami, and Wally were all looking at him like he was insane and Sia and Philly were both out guarding their trainers like he was about to start a rampage.

"W-who were you talking to?" Cami asked, visibly unnerved.

"Nobody, just ignore that. It's like a mental fart, as you might equate it," Zeitgeist claimed as he gently floated over to Reid and hovered in circles above his head. "Now should we return to me getting a gender and a nickname?"

"Ri-right…" Wally stammered, phasing back to normality, "Anyways, we were wondering if you wanted to be called Zeit. It's nice and short and we all think it has charm to it."

"I'd be more than happy to be called that," Zeit stated as he began floating elsewhere around the room, doing more loops. "And as for my gender, I wish to be a male."

"Great," Reid clapped as Sia hopped onto his shoulder, "Now we can all move on from this."

"Speaking of moving on," Cami said playing with the bones on her plate, "how long is it until that tournament you both were going to enter starts?"

Wally started to crunch the digits in his head as Philly stated nabbing pieces of his salad. "We've been traveling for eight days now, and Stone said it was a couple weeks away, so I think it's going to be in six days. Give or take."

"The nurse said I can leave tomorrow. I've healed up really well and the prosthetic leg I'm getting, you know the paddle kind, is supposed to be pretty good for trainers," Reid said as he started picking out pieces of Mareep from his stew.

"I'm ready to get out of here," Sia groaned as he started to play with Reid's hair, "I've run out of things to break that Reid's insurance covers."

"I don't know if I should be proud of that, or scared," Reid laughed as he patted Sia's leg and held up a piece of meat, which Sia happily took.

"I'm just ready to get out and stretch my legs. I can't even feel them anymore after being crammed in this place for so long," Cami complained, only moments later realizing what she'd said. "I...I need to get some air."

She quickly got up and ran for the front door, not even bothering to let Reid or Wally talk to her.

"Cami come back!" Reid yelled out in vain.

"Just let her go out for a bit Reid," Wally started gaining Reid's attention, "She's been doing a lot to try and cope lately you know."

"I know but I wish she'd talk. I mean I'm the one who lost the limb yet she's the one taking it like it's her life that's ruined," Reid vented, Sia pulling at his hair a bit in an attempt to keep calm.

"You're life isn't ruined though," Philly chimed in with the usual happy grin he always had on. "You have a new leg, and your adventures are just starting!" Philly grabbed for one of the sliced fruits in Wally's salad and started munching away again.

"I wish everybody else had your optimism," Wally smiled petting Philly's head.

* * *

"Why did that have to happen to Reid!" Cami grit through her teeth as she walked down the pathway.

It was a little bit after noon and the sun was peeking through the clouds. Not like the clouds that were around last week, but little white and wispy ones. It was fairly cool outside and she noticed that a couple Zigzagoon were wrestling just off the path. She always thought it was cute when creatures like that had rivalries. It kind of reminded her of her relationship with Reid.

She'd been walking for what was probably a solid twenty minutes, and even though she wasn't too deep into the woods, she decided that she'd walked enough and turned back for the center. Even though Reid kept telling her that the incident with the Carvanha wasn't her fault, she knew that it was. He'd recently brought up the point that he was lucky that it had bit him where it did. Like if it hadn't bit him in his leg, it might have hopped around and eventually might have bit someone's neck, or stomach. She knew that it all could have been a lot worse but still, it could have been prevented. Right?

There was some rucas just off the path in the forest, pokemon shouting, but she didn't care. It was probably just some Machop fighting over a berry or-

 **BOOM**

Everything was blurry. Cami was on the ground, grass in her face, mud and dirt caked on her sides. She was laying against a tree. Why am I against a tree?

With her ears ringing, Cami slogged up. Her legs hurt, but she could walk. Her arms had small cuts from the gravel but that didn't hurt too-

 **KABAM**

What was going on? Why am I back on the ground again?

She tried getting up again, but found it harder to do this time. Her legs were cut now, and even a few small pieces of gravel were lodged in. She inspected her arms again, this time instead of cuts from the gravel there were small shards of wood embedded in them. Noticing that some feeling was returning to her, she glanced down at her stomach to see that other small shards of wood were there. And her tank top had been torn beyond repair.

She looked around, still dizzy, trying to find what had tossed her so far. It wasn't until she'd grasped a bit more of her surroundings that she noticed two large plumes of smoke not even twenty yard off the path. And there were screams. Lot's of screaming.

She wobbled as best as she could towards the sounds and smoke, not even thinking about what she might have been walking into. It took her a couple of minutes, but she was slowly making her way there. All the while she kept hearing more screams. She couldn't tell what was making them though. They were just loud draaas and rrriiiinnnggss. And then, things got quiet. There weren't any more explosions. No screams either. Just the sound of her ears ringing.

She finally breached the clearing and instantly found what had been making the noises. Laying, what she presumed was dead, on the other side of the clearing, was an Ursaring. She immediately collapsed, too scared to think about what could have possibly done that to a creature as powerful as an Ursaring. She quickly crawled back into the foliage and checked her surroundings. It was a moment later that there was a new sound breaching the ringing in her ears. It was a faint moan, maybe even a cry.

Cami peaked out from the bush she'd crawled into and looked around the clearing again. It was then she noticed a large purple...thing...poking out from a bush, not even twenty feet to her left. There was a dark blue liquid that was puddling under it, and she presumed it was blood. That was until the thing started drooping, as if it was melting.

Raaa…

There was that moan again. It was even weaker than before, and seemed to come from whatever was hiding in the bush. Cami crawled out from the bush and, despite what her brain was telling her, limped over to it. She kept a close eye on the Ursaring, not wanting to get mauled but tossed the idea aside when she noticed that the creature was missing half of its face. Now just a couple feet away from the creature in the bush, Cami took a deep breath, and decided that she was going to try and help it.

"Are you-"

The creature instantly turned and jumped out of the bush, tackling Cami to the ground. Cami landed on her side with whatever slimy thing she now had her face pressed into. It was slimy, bleeding, and from the energy flowing through the air, mad.

RAAAAA….ra?

Cami felt the grip on her ease and whatever was holding her had either gotten up or had let go. She opened her eyes to see that there was a tall, and purple creature standing before her. She felt arms two large and slimy arms wrap around her sides. She flinched, expecting it to start eating her, or start breaking her bones, but was surprised when it started to cradle her. She glanced up at the face of the creature and instantly recognized what it was. It was a Goodra.

Feeling a bit more confidence that she wasn't going to get mauled when it set her down, she began to inspect its body, what was left of it. There were large gashes along its arms and its chest, where there were actually organs hanging out. It's face had a large gash across it, and was bleeding from its mouth. She flinched when it turned, but when it started walking off she let her guard down. It had been gone for around a minute and she assumed that it had either died or gone back to its territory. That was until the bushes started rattling again and the Goodra reappeared again, but with a egg in its arms.

She took a step towards the dragon, extending her arm towards the blood and slime coated egg. The Goodra hesitated for a moment, but when its knee gave out, it reluctantly handed the egg over to her. The egg wasn't too large, or heavy for that matter. It probably weighed a couple pounds and was only the size of football. She looked back at the Goodra. Sure she knew it probably wouldn't make it without getting help but-

"The Center!" Cami shouted realizing that there might be hope for the dragon after all.

She quickly remembered that they were about twenty minutes away from it and there was no way that Goodra would make it that far. She heard a thud behind her and realized that the dragon had collapsed. She started to panic, but took a breath to try and calm down. Thinking back to what little hands on training she'd received at her internship, she quickly thought about what she might be able to do. There was too much bleeding for a berry to be useful here, and this thing was wild so that meant she couldn't send it to a ball…

"That's it!" Cami exclaimed, an idea quickly popping into head.

She quickly dug around in her pocket, looking for the one pokeball that Reid had given her when they tried to catch a beautifly the day they left. Reaching into her back left pocket, she felt the round top of the ball. Half excited, she pulled it out and hurriedly pressed the ball against the dying dragon. Nothing happened. She pushed the pokeball against it again, waiting for it to be sucked inside the ball. Nothing. She shook it, silently cursing as she wondered why it wasn't working. She pressed the ball against it one last time. Nothing. She inspected the ball, thinking there might be dirt on the ring. But there was no ring. There wasn't even a front to the ball. It was cracked and had caved in, and was even letting out small sparks. Broken. She couldn't save Goodra. It was her fault. Again.

* * *

"You think Cami's okay?" Reid asked as he and Wally left the cafeteria.

They had just finished their meals, a few minutes after Cami had stormed out. Reid had wanted to chase after her, but running was still kind of tricky for him, and his stump was kind of sore still. Phantom pain was something that would take a while to get used too.

"I think she will be, I mean she's just going for a walk. What could possibly happen?" Wally asked as he helped Philly hop onto his shoulder.

"It's not that I think that something's going to happen to her," although the events of the first two days certainly weren't giving him any peace of mind, "it's that I think she's got the wrong mindset about the whole, me losing a leg thing."

"Well, she did release the Carvanha. I'm pretty sure I'd be in the same position if I had opened it on you, and you if you had opened it on her."

Well he had to admit that Wally was right in that aspect. He probably never would have forgiven himself if Cami had been hurt, she was his best friend. He continued to think about the subject until the reached their rooms. Reid had his own private bunk that the hospital had given him in order to heal up faster. Cami and Wally were given a room to sleep in across the hall. Thankfully for Wally's sake, there were two separate bedrooms within their suite. Originally Cami had wanted to sleep in Reid's room, but the staff didn't even consider it as an option.

"Hey Philly and I are gonna hit the indoor pool. You wanna come? Or would that not be good for your leg?"

"I don't know if it'd hurt my leg, but I think I'm going to wait for Cami to get back. I'll be at the main lobby if you need me," Reid said as he walked back towards the main lobby.

As he entered it, a news report was going on about local skirmishes between Team Aqua and Team Magma. Apparently the skirmishes around here hadn't been too big around here, but they were still happening and people on both sides were still getting killed. The news went on like that for a while, showing scenes of burning patches of forests and helicopter views of battlefields.

After a while, Reid looked at his watch. He noticed that it'd been nearly been half an hour since Cami had left them at the table.

"Don't put too much of this on yourself."

* * *

Goodra had died. It hadn't happened more than a minute after Cami figured out her only pokeball was destroyed. It had said something to Cami in its dying breath, she didn't know what it was but she assumed it had something to do with taking care of the egg. Cami sat down against a tree only a few feet away from the fallen dragon, and started realizing just how cruel life was. It had killed both an Ursaring, a Goodra, and had it not been for Cami, an egg left to rot.

She started to pick some of the splinters out of her arms. Blood was coming out from several places on her, but it wasn't anything too serious. Her hearing had returned to a comfortable level and her clothes weren't as torn as she'd originally thought they were.

Cami picked up the egg and grit her teeth. She attempted to stand up to the best of her abilities. It took a ton of effort and the pain certainly wasn't helping. Eventually, she stood up and leaned against the tree for support. She took a deep breath, bit the bullet, and started to hobble off. She passed by the Ursaring again on her way out. She took note of how badly charred its stomach was. Its ring wasn't even there. Most of the fur had been burnt off, and the skin that was showing was mostly black and charred over. She then noticed its arm was on top of something. Slightly curious, she took a couple steps over until she noticed something tan. Another egg.

"Son of a-"

* * *

"And that's how Kipper the Mudkip stole everyone's heart. Back to you Terence."

It had been an hour since Cami had left and Reid was really starting to worry. What was taking her so long? What was she doing? The news wasn't helping him stay calm, even with a story about Hoenn's cutest Mudkip. Wally was still swimming with Philly, Zeitgeist was in his ball, and Sia...Well Sia was asleep next to him on the couch. He wasn't too sure what he could do or say to her when she got back, and was frankly pretty nervous about confronting her. It was a touchy issue sure, but it involved both of them and it should be discussed again. That was the plan, until the doors to the place flew open with a man and a woman carrying a bloodied and battered Cami to the front desk, instantly got her on a stretcher and disappeared down the hallway. It was all over in a second. Just, in and out. The man and woman were walking towards the door, both looking a bit weary, and were coated in blood.

"Hey! What happened to Cami?!" Reid shouted at them, doing his best to not cry in front of the adults.

"We found her like that just down the path," The woman said as she looked towards the man.

"What happened?!" Reid shouted again.

"We don't know," The man replied as he looked at Reid in the eyes. "She was passed out on the ground like that when we found her. She had these with her too," He finished as he pulled two eggs out of his backpack. "I assume you're her friend. Take care of her and these."

The man set the eggs down beside Sia, who was twitching in his sleep. Probably from all the noise that Reid was making.

"I wouldn't worry too much," The woman cut in, "Her cuts were numerous, but they were all very minor. She probably won't even need stitches. Just bandages and rest."

That took a load off of Reid's chest. Cami wasn't going to die. Thank god. But this just raised more questions. What the hell happened to her and why did she have two eggs?

"Do you know where she got the eggs?" Reid asked, visably calmer than before.

"We just found her and the eggs," The man said as he put his hand on Reid's shoulder. "Stay strong young man. For her."

*Authors note*

Hey guys, Treecko man here. I want to thank you all (for those who made it this far) for reading my story. Yes, I know it started out a bit slow, but now the action is really happening and I could not be more excited for the future of Journey of Hope. Again, if you've made it this far into the series, THANK YOU. Your support is so helpful, you have no idea. Thank you all. ~Treecko Man


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Can't hel-"

Cami had been moaning stuff like that for the past six hours that Reid had been by her side in her recovery room. They'd been long, boring, and torturous. Sia had been of little help since he had fallen asleep in the first hour or so that Reid had been with Cami. Zeit had been there too, but left because he had to go talk to somebody. Whoever it was, Reid had no idea who that someone might be but he didn't ask any questions. Wally and Philly were both taking care of the eggs that Cami had been found with. They were both shocked when Reid told them about what happened to Cami; well all that he could that is. Reid still had no idea about what happened to her and why the heck she had two eggs with her. Plus, with the way she was mumbling all of those depressing things, something bad must have happened that was beyond her control.

"You holding on alright?" Wally asked as he walked into the recovery room.

Reid glanced over to him, silently nodding as he looked back to Cami.

"Still any signs of her getting better?" Wally asked while pulling a chair over from the opposite corner.

"Doctors said it's not life threatening, but she should probably rest until tomorrow," Reid rasped as he started to stroke a lock of her hair.

"And you have no idea about what happened to her?"

"Not a clue. Even the people that found her don't have any idea what happened to her."

"Guess we'll have to be in the dark until she wakes up," Wally sighed as he started to pet Sia's tail. "Just wish we had gone after her, then she wouldn't be in this mess and-"

"God dammit Wally, get out of the loop," Reid raised as he glared at Wally. "You were right to let her go. She needs to figure this whole thing out for herself just like the rest of us do. I know you think this is partly your fault, but what happened was out of your control. What happened was out of everybody's control, and right now we all need to find ways to manage with our guilt," Reid turned away from Wally and faced back towards Cami. "We can't just live our lives in a pit."

"I-I guess you got me there…"

"Now, just go keep the pokemon in line. Sia and Philly are probably okay, but Zeit is a bit off and the eggs...well are eggs."

"Sia and Philly are both asleep and I think Zeit was circling around outside or something. You sure you're alright? Need anything though? Drink? A blanket?"

"I-I'm fine. Just go look after the pokemon okay?"

Wally nodded and left the room. It was mostly silent after that, and for the few hours afterwards, aside from the occasional beep from a medical device and Cami's mostly incoherent grunting. Some things however, were audible and every now and then. Reid heard his name in the mix, which made him incredibly uneasy. Nothing, he found out, was more unsettling than someone unconscious saying your name. Eventually the hours ticked by and things were starting to go black and blurry.

"R-eid?"

Reid shot up and looked around the room at the sound of his name. His eyes stick together like they were made of glue and his mouth was beyond dry. He shook the sleep out of his system and turned to Cami, who was laying up in her bed. She was visibly sore. Most of her movements were followed by audible crack and grunts of pain.

"Wh-where, why am I here?"

"Oh thank god you're okay," Reid praised as he collapsed next to her bed. "God, please don't scare me like that again Cami."

"What do you, why am I so sore?" She asked, stumbling on her own sentences.

"You were hurt pretty badly. What happened out there? And why did you bring back two eggs with you?"

"Eggs? Whaddya me-oh...right…" Cami collapsed back into her bed. Reid was a bit startled by what she was doing, but noticed she was, was that crying?

"Cami are you?"

"Out."

"What do you-"

"Get. Out."

"Cami I'm-"

"OUT!"

Reid sighed, got up, and headed for the door. He looked back, but saw Cami looked like she was staring daggers into his eyes. And god did they hurt. Whatever happened to her though, would probably have to wait. If it caused her to yell at him like that, then it was probably pretty bad. He walked to the main lobby, and stared out the main entrance for a while. But something was...a bit off.

"Bout time you got out of there." Reid turned at the sound of Wally's voice. "You know you should probably shave and get some lunch."

"Lunch?"

"It's just a little bit past noon you know."

Reid glanced to the clock hanging on wall of the lobby. Sure enough, somehow time had escaped him and it was 12:30 in the afternoon.

"I went to Cami's room this morning and you were out cold in that chair, so I just let you be," Reid groaned a bit, realizing that was why his back hurt so much. "By the way, is she doing okay?"

"She's awake if that's what you mean."

"Ooh, Cami's awake?" Reid and Wally turned to see Philly walking towards them, with Sia and Zeitgeist not far behind him. "Can I go see her?"

"I'd give her a bit of time," Reid answered getting a disappointed look back. "She's not in the best mood right now."

"I think that's understandable," Wally noted as he picked up Philly and placed him on his shoulder. "Anyways, if Cami's feeling up to it, what time do you want to leave at?"

"Well, it's five days until the tournament on Sunday, and if Cami doesn't want to leave until tomorrow, we'll only really have some of Saturday in Rustboro to train and get settled. If we leave today, we'll at least have a good chunk of Friday to train."

"Let's go today. I'm fine to walk." Wally and Reid looked up and saw Cami approaching them. She wasn't wearing her usual clothes. Those had been torn and she had basically bled out in them. Instead, she was wearing one of Reid's old school shirts, along with a pair of his jeans that would be fairly baggy on her if it wasn't for the pokebelt that she was wearing. Wait...when had she gotten that? And why was it packed with pokeballs?

"Are you sure you're up to it?" Wally asked and Cami replied with a nod.

"I'm a bit scraped up and sore, but nothing that'll stop me from getting to Rustboro."

"And the doctors are okay with you headed out this early?" Wally asked getting another nod.

"What's our situation with the eggs though?" Reid asked grabbing her attention. She seemed slightly annoyed by his presence, but it was probably just the remnants from this morning.

"I got a new backpack from the store here, So I'll just pack the eggs in it along with some towels or something to keep them warm." Wally seemed to be nodding in agreement. Apparently he couldn't think of a better way himself, so towels and a backpack it was. It also seemed that Reid wasn't the only one who had noticed Cami's belt either.

"Mistress Cami, since when have you too had a pokebelt? And with so many pokeballs?" Zeitgeist asked as he started to circle around her.

The rest of the group also began to take notice of her new accessory. Not too comfortable with all of the attention, Cami squirmed a bit trying to hide her belt, but was failing at it.

"I-I, got it because I wanted to be prepared," Her eyes dilated a bit more and Reid could tell this was probably something that had to do with what happened to her. "You kn-know, capture pokemon and stuff."

"Sounds good to me," Wally clapped and brought the group back to focus, almost oblivious to Cami's uneasiness. "So when should we go? If Cami's up to it and Reid's used to his prosthetic, I don't think there's anything keeping us here anymore."

"I'd like to go now. I've been cooped up in here for far too long," Sia complained as he hopped onto Reid's shoulders and began twiddling with his hair.

"How about after lunch and after I get everything cleared with my prosthetic. There's still a couple of questions I need to ask," Mainly they were about how much damage the thing could take and how often he could take it off because his stump was pretty sweaty down there.

"After lunch is fine with me, but I need to get some new clothes after we leave," Cami yelled back as she headed towards the cafeteria with Zeitgeist still circling around her.

"I'm going to go talk to the physical therapist," Reid motioned as he set Sia down and straightened his hair. "Sia you go with Wally and Philly and get some lunch. I'll join you in a few minutes."

Sia seemed a bit disappointed but nodded. He turned around and started to walk with Wally and Philly as they headed for the cafeteria too.

* * *

"So it's not fireproof?"

Reid had been talking to the physical therapist for almost twenty minute at that point. Turns out he had a lot more questions than he thought he did. But he also had a lot more answers too. He had also found out that there was a small cubby in the prosthetic that stored little tools to adjust certain parts of it. Quite an interesting piece of equipment. The woman he was talking to was calmly walking him through all of it too. Though she seemed a bit annoyed when Reid told her he was leaving after their talk.

"It's not fireproof. It's fire _resistant_ ," She gave him a fairly deep glare on that one. "Anything else you need to know?"

"I think that's it," Reid looked away again but had turned to ask one more thing on his mind. "So you know the girl who was attacked yesterday right?" The woman nodded. Everybody in the center had heard about what happened to Cami, aside from what actually happened, since nobody knew that bit. "She's pretty edgy about it all and she's not usually like that. Not at all. You have any clue about what it might be that's troubling her?"

"If I had any idea, then I'd be a psychologist wouldn't I?" She chuckled as she pat Reid on the back. "Don't worry too much. She'll tell you when she's ready."

Reid nodded, accepting what he heard as the most probable thing to happen. He left her office, waving goodbye and headed for the cafeteria. His friends were still there, but their plates were littered with bits of uneaten food. Sia was the only one who had anything on his plate. Reid pulled up a chair and sat down.

"What'd you talk to them about?" Wally asked as he picked his teeth clean with his fork.

"Just about what my prosthetic can handle. Apparently I shouldn't be going near Mt. Pyre anytime soon." He passed his menu to one of the waiters, already knowing he was going to be having the mareep stew.

"Well that's where Flannery, the fifth gym leader in the circuit is, so I guess we'll have to make that trip an in and out," Wally finished, noticing Philly was taking an interest in his bad table manners. He took the fork from Philly, and that got a fairly good chuckle from the table.

* * *

After Reid had eaten and they packed up their gear, they thanked the center staff and left the center for the first time in more than a week. They made a quick stop at one of the department stores in Petalburg, got Cami some new clothes. After twenty minutes of shopping, Cami had picked out a few pairs of jeans, a couple tank tops, a couple t-shirts, and of course new underwear. All of that was packed carefully around the eggs in Cami's pack. Once they were sure that they had everything they needed, the group headed out on the path. Cami was fairly edgy towards the start of the path, but after they'd walked for half an hour, she seemed to calm down a bit.

Along the way, a few wild pokemon had attacked them. Nothing too extreme, just the usual wild encounter. It was never anything more than Sia, Philly, or Zeit could handle. A poochyena here, a vigoroth there, just a few little things to get them better in shape for the tournament. Cami had even tried to catch a masquerain, but ended up getting wrapped up in a string shot.

"Guess bug types aren't a fan of ya," Wally joked getting a scowl back from her.

Throughout the rest of the day, there were many other encounters like that. Wild attacks, bugs capturing Cami (which was kind of ironic), and Sia, Zeitgeist, and Philly were all doing extremely well throughout it all. There were a couple times where spinarak knocked out Philly due to his part fairy typing, but it was never really enough to keep him down. Finally, after around seven hours of walking, and seeing as how it was fairly dark, they all decided to set up camp for the night. Wally got to cooking noodles for the meal he was making, and Sia and Philly were out gathering berries as usual. The tents went up quickly, fire was started, water was boiling, people and pokemon were eating, it was all...normal. For the first time in a week, Reid felt like he'd had a fairly, normal, day.

After their meal had been finished, and washed down with a dessert of more of Wally's candied berries, it was time to hit the hay. Zeit wanted to sleep outside the tent in a patch of mud, which Reid found odd, but shrugged it off. Cami and Sia were both in his tent again. Cami had gotten her own sleeping bag so now there wasn't a need for any blankets or makeshift sleeping arrangements. Except for Sia who gladly took the blanket and settled down next to Reid's pillow. Reid took off his prosthetic, placed it in the corner of the tent, and dug his way into his sleeping bag. He hadn't bothered changing into new clothes. Nobody had. Not even Cami, which was relieving because Reid had been fearing another tease fest. Cami dug her way into her bag too, and only giving Reid a quick "Night Reid," she off to dreamland.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Reid turned in his bag, and finally got comfortable. This was nice. A normal day. They got to train, didn't get mauled (unless you counted Cami getting bound up in four different string shot incidents), didn't have anybody get too hurt, and didn't run into any Team Aqua or Magma members. Things were finally starting off normally.

"What do you mean I'm not developed enough?"

Reid squirmed at the sudden noise coming from outside his tent. He recognized it was Zeit's voice, but who the heck was he talking to?

"Hey don't judge me for flying in circles around people. That's my bit. You gave me that!"

Zeit was basically yelling at this point, and Reid was surprised that nobody else was waking up from this. Zeit was screaming and nobody was hearing this weird conversation?

"I don't care if they can hear me! It's not my bloody fault you keep coming back! If anything, you're the one ruining the story."

This was starting to get scary. Reid could feel the tension outside his tent. Whoever Zeitgeist was yelling at, they were really pissing him off and sounded like a fight was about to break out.

"No I'm not crazy, you're the one who keeps coming back to talk with me about your bloody story! Why don't you ever talk with the others! Why is it just me!?"

That brought something new to the table and _really_ made Reid think about what was going on out there. Maybe there wasn't anything going on out there, and Zeit was crazy. He'd said out loud that he wasn't crazy, but wasn't that something the crazy people all said? In fact, this was just like the other day when he'd been talking to nobody right infront of all of them. Was this...the same thing?

"Fine I'll...settle on that. Now let me get some bloody sleep. And stop talking to me!"

There was an eerie silence after that. Reid was trying to ignore the sound of his beating heart and listened for any sounds of footsteps that might have belonged to whoever Zeit was yelling at. But, there weren't any. For about five minutes, Reid did nothing but listen and breathe. Still nothing. Zeit really had been yelling at himself. Zeit really was crazy. And there went Reid's 'normal' day with it.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

After a long night of nightmares involving his now certifiably insane beldum, Reid awake with the horrible taste of sleep in his mouth. He noticed a few beams of sunlight were poking through his tent, so he took it upon himself to wake up and get the site prepared for the morning. He put on his prosthetic, trying to be as quiet as possible as not to wake Sia or Cami, unzipped his tent and left to go start up a fire. That was until he glanced back over at Zeit who was still laying in the mud. Light, psychedelic snores were softly echoing throughout the campsite, and Reid decided instead of talking to him about last night's events, that it could wait for later. Nature was calling and that took priority.

Once Reid had finished his business though, he started on making a fire. Reid found the flint and steel that Wally had left near the pit from the night before and tried to light some of the twigs and grass they'd gathered last night. After striking it a few times, the sparks finally caught and he got a small fire going. It wasn't long before the fire was crackling and the others were out, joining him around the fire. Sia had been the first to join him, quickly followed by Wally and Philly. Cami and Zeitgeist were still sleeping, but Wally suggested that they be left to sleep while he got breakfast started. Sia and Philly headed out again to explore and gather fruits, and Wally got to cooking what they brought back. Aside from Zeit's incident last night, all was right.

Cami and Zeitgeist were eventually woken by the smell of grilled fruit and soon everybody was gathered round the campfire. It was probably just past six in the morning, which was probably the time that they should have been up, so hey, it was convenient. Breakfast was the same as normal. Cami and Reid were worshipping Wally for his cooking skills, Sia and Wally were out exploring again, and Zeitgeist was circling around Reid.

"So the tournament is in four days. How much time do you guys want to spend training compared to walking?" Wally asked as he set his clean plate aside.

"Well, I think we'd be okay doing what we're doing now," Cami cut in "We made pretty good time yesterday, and you guys got a lot of practice in with all those encounters we had."

"Speaking of encounters though, where are all the other trainers at?" Reid wondered. "Not counting those Aqua and Magma thugs, we haven't seen one since we started our journey."

"That's...wow I hadn't even noticed," Wally replied fairly shocked at the revelation. "I haven't seen a single trainer since I've met you guys."

"Wonder why that is," Reid thought out loud.

"Reid!" Sia burst through the trees and was incredibly panicked. His left arm was slightly burned and he looked like he was about to pass out.

"Sia, dear god what happened?" Reid exclaimed as he ran over to aid Sia.

"There were Magma members, a lot of them."

"How many is a lot?" Wally and Cami started to run over too, Wally making sure to grab a potion.

"Probably five or so. They all had a pokemon with them."

"Wait," Wally interrupted, looking around, "Where's Philly?"

Sia stared back at him with empty, apologetic eyes. "I tried to help him Wally, I really did."

"Wai-they killed him?!" Wally collapsed to the ground, tears flowing down his flushed face.

"Wally, I'm so sor-"

"Wally no, they didn't kill Philly!" Sia yelled cutting Reid off. "They just captured him in some weird energy box, thing."

Wally bolted up, tears no longer flowing, but instead an odd mixture of hope and hate were burning through his eyes. "So he's okay then?!"

Sia scratched the back of his head, avoiding eye contact with Wally.

Wally stayed silent for a few moments before getting up towards Sia.

"He's not okay is he." It wasn't even a question that Wally needed answered. He got up and started walking through the trees where Sia had emerged.

"Hey!" Wally glared back at Reid, making him hush for a moment. "Just wait, if you go running in, they'll just do the same to you as they did Philly. We need a plan."

Zeitgeist bobbed over and started to hover around Reid. "I can kill them if you want."

"Zeit," Wally started walking over to him, "Please do."

"Hold on!" Cami yelled grabbing everybody's attention, "First, no killing. And second, before we run dick first into enemy territory, why don't we, you know...use this time to plan up something that will get Philly back unharmed."

"Because every second we waste standing here, Philly is suffering more and more!"

"Well if you want to _actually_ get him back, then just rushing in there isn't going to work! We've got two usable pokemon, one of which is burned! So, still think a rush is the best way to play this?"

Wally scowled and paced around the dying fire pit. "I-just want to get him back."

"We all do Wally, but Cami has a point. We can't just rush in, that'll just end in more people getting hurt."

"Well-" Wally stammered as more tears continued to flow.

"Wally, let's just think for a second," Reid tried to calm him placing a hand on his shoulder. "Take a really deep breath and let's just think for two minutes.

Wally let out an audible sigh, took a breath and turned back to the gang.

"Alright, what should we do?"

"Well," Reid paused as he looked over to Sia, "Did you see what pokemon they had?"

"I think, uhh a couple Poochyena and a Beedrill."

"See," Reid glanced back to Wally "Nothing that we can't handle. So, now that we know what we're up against let's make a plan."

"What I'm thinking," Cami chimed in, drawing a small circle in the dirt "So if this is their camp, then it should be easy to get the drop on them." Cami picked up a small stick and started to draw smaller circles in the one that she drew before. "So you three come up from the left over here. Sia, you'll use quick attack on as many of the Poochyena that are out. Aim for the head if you can," Sia nodded in agreement and the others seemed to as well. "Reid, you'll be commanding Sia, and if necessary throwing some punches. I'll be headed on the right side where I'll jump out with Zeit and we'll take on the Beedrill."

"This...is sounding pretty good," Wally spoke as he clenched his fists again. "But you never told me what my job was."

"I thought it was obvious," Cami laughed as Wally gave her a frustrated glance "You'll be going for Philly. Do anything you need to, to get him back."

Wally cracked a smile a gazed into the forest. "Alright then, we ready to do this?" Wally asked, fairly eager to charge in.

"Well is everybody ready? Sia are you good to fight?" Reid asked as he picked up his starter and placed him on his shoulder. Sia just patted his head in confirmation. "Well, we're ready it seems. Zeit you good to go?"

"More than."

"Then let's get moving," Wally spoke as they all sprinted into the forest.

* * *

"Let me out!" Philly screamed as he bashed against the side of his cage. The Team Magma members around him were just laughing as they packed up their camping gear. Nothing Philly had said was making a difference in this scene, so he decided to try and take a crack at talking the other pokemon around him into letting him out. That idea went down the gutter though when four Poochyena glared him down before he even started to speak. Things were looking bleak. The only real hope he had was if Sia made it back. Even though Sia had some rough burns, Philly knew he made it back to camp. Sia was tough like that.

"Hey you!" One of the Magma members yelled over to Philly "Is your trainer coming yet? We haven't met our quota this month and need his pokemon pretty badly."

"Wally is coming back and he's going to kick your butt! Just you wait till he gets here!" Philly yelled as the men laughed again and continued to pack up.

"As long as that blue Treecko comes back too, then we'll be set. I can bet the admins would be very grateful for a shiny pokemon, and one as rare as a treecko too." One of the other thugs laughed as he tossed a sleeping bag into his rucksack.

Philly let out a low, resenting growl. These guys were going to get what was coming to them, that's for sure. Philly backed away from the side of the cage and kneeled down near the middle. Time to find out just how close Wally really was.

* * *

Wally gazed into the campsite, hatred flowing through his eyes. From where he, Reid, and Sia were crouched in a bush, he could see the Magma members packing away gear from their campsite. The Poochyena that Sia said he'd seen were huddled around the dying fire pit. Two of them seemed to be asleep, but the other two were looking around the campsite. Philly, he noticed, was in a decently sized metal cage. One that looked like it had enough room to fit a Chansey comfortably inside, so at least he wasn't being hurt. Philly's body seemed to be mostly scratchless as well, so that gave Wally a bit more hope about the situation. Everything seemed to be going well. They had the element of surprise on their hand and were just waiting for Cami to give the signal that she was ready. He had to admit, it was a pretty stupid one, but he knew if anybody could pull it off, it'd be her.

"Don't worry buddy, I'll be right there."

* * *

Philly grinned and he turned towards a bush that was behind him. So they were already here? Awesome. He could sense that Wally, Reid, and Sia were in that bush over there and their heartbeats were a lot faster than normal. Cami, however he could not sense. Philly searched around and noticed that one of the Magma members aura was fading away. No, moving away. But it quickly grew strong again. Now it was growing stronger...wait...why was there…

"Oh no," Philly gasped as he looked to where he sensed the Magma member. There was another aura along with him and suddenly, he burst into the clearing dragging Cami by the hair.

"Guess who I just found!" The man laughed as he pushed Cami to the ground.

"Geez Rokko you sure don't disappoint," one of the other Magma members laughed as he walked over to her. He quickly drove a kick into her side and she heaved as she fell back onto the ground. "So you came back for your puny Ralts after all huh? Where's the Treecko at huh?"

Philly gazed on in horror as Cami took more kicks. What was happening?! Why was Cami here alone? Where were any of the others and why wasn't she fighting back?!

Cami coughed up a little blood and chuckled as she struggled to get up. She looked over to Philly who had a look of shock on his face. "I think you'd look better if you out of that cage Philly."

"Like I'm gunna let some punk kid like you let out my capture! That bonus for your pokemon is too big to pass up!" Rokko yelled as he drove another kick at Cami. Philly closed his eyes, not wanting to watch any more of the madness.

"Gaaaah!"

Philly was surprised though, when it wasn't Cami who had screamed. He glanced back and saw that Zeit had come out of nowhere and pummeled the man named Rokko to the ground. Cami was also back up on her feet and was taking swings at the other man that had hit her. The other Magma members around had taken notice to the scene and were headed over to assist their comrades. That was when he sensed the others making their move. Sia appeared from the bush in a blaze of white light and drove himself into the Poochyena sending some of them flying, one of them even landing in the fire pit, though it quickly jumped out and got into a battle stance.

Reid and Wally also emerged from the bushes. Reid started yelling out orders and Sia was quick to obey them. Blazing white streaked around the campsite sending some of the Magma members to the ground. The Poochyena quickly regrouped and seemed to start going on the offensive. One of them started to growl loudly and red flames were forming in its mouth, starting up what Philly assumed was the fire fang attack that had injured Sia earlier. The Poochyena didn't last long though as Zeit drove himself into them, sending them flying once again. Two Magma members were struggling to figure out what was going on, and it looked like Cami had capitalized on that as she drove a kick into one of them and he instantly fell to the ground, the wind clearly hit out of him. Cami grabbed the hand of the other Magma member and bent it to where an audible _crack_ was heard throughout the campsite followed by his screams of pain.

"Do you always have to go for the hands?!" Reid yelled as he ordered Sia to go after one of the Magma members that had started to flee the scene.

"If it works I do it!" Cami laughed as she ordered Zeit to use take down on the Beedrill that was firing off twin needle attacks.

"You guys keep them busy! I've got Philly!" Wally ran over to his cage and looked it over, trying to find the side from where it opened. He quickly found the lock that was keeping the cage closed, the problem was he didn't have the key. "Guys we need a key over here!"

"Zeit!" Reid yelled as he jumped back from a twin needle attack, "Be our master key and bust that thing open!" Zeit quickly obeyed and angled himself towards the cage "Philly brace for it!"

Philly tensed up as Zeit flew towards the cage, crushing the top of it and sending shards of metal flying everywhere. Though most of the cage had caved in, most of the metal bars were either bent outwards or gone entirely, making it an easy escape for Philly. Philly crawled out and immediately jumped into Wally's arms, both of them letting out tears of joy, despite the heavy fighting that was going on around them. An explosion from one of the Beedrill's attacks sent them to the ground though, breaking up their happy reunion. Philly saw Wally wince from the pain of the blow, but he didn't seem to horribly injured.

"Philly?" he glanced back to Wally as he called his name, "Let's not keep the others waiting! Psybeam on that Beedrill let's go!"

Philly grinned and got right to work. The Beedrill was on the other side of the camp focusing on taking out Zeit who had gone back to trying to take it out, but was struggling to due to it simply outspeeding him. Philly focused on his target and quickly built up energy in between his hands. Once he had the Beedrill in his sights, he let loose the beam of psychedelic energy. Philly's psychic attack found its mark and hit the Beedrill dead on, causing it to fall from the sky. It landed on the ground with a loud thud and started to convulse from the super effective hit.

Philly took a breath and looked around, taking in the scene. All the Magma members were on the ground, either unconscious or just too injured to move. The Poochyena were all knocked out and were sort of piled up near the fire pit. The Beedrill wasn't even twitching anymore so that probably meant that it was out cold too. The gang regrouped near a shredded tent. Wally had an incredibly large smile on his face as he placed Philly back onto his shoulder. Cami wiped some of the dust off her pants as she slugged Reid on the shoulder with a grin.

"See you guys, nothing to worry about."

"Let's save the congrats for later though," Reid said as he picked up Sia and placed him on his shoulder and Zeit bobbed around him as usual, "I just want to get out of here."

"Shouldn't we do something about...them though?" Cami pointed towards the, for the most part, unconscious group of Team Magma members.

"Leave em," Wally groaned as he pet his companion, "We're two and a half days away from Rustboro and a day away from Oldale Town. There's no way the police would get here before these guys would wake up."

"I guess you're right," Reid grit his teeth as he looked back to the group of unconscious men, "I'm just mad that they won't get to see justice."

"It's fine I guess," Wally groaned as he started to walk back to their camp, "So long as this was the end result, I'm happy."

The rest started to follow him as they entered the treeline.

"Wait!"

The group turned their heads to the sound of the feminine cry. It wasn't coming from anywhere in the camp, but rather from the other side of the clearing.

"Please, don't leave me here!"

The group eyed each other and slowly walked to the other side of the clearing, not sure what to expect from the voice. Reid was the first to walk through the clearing, ready to start fighting if needed. Sia was also glowing in a bright light, probably warming up a quick attack and Zeit had the same idea but with a take down. As he pushed aside another bush, he was surprised when he found a woman tied to a tree. The thing that stumbled him the most was, why was she wearing a lab coat?

"Oh thank god you're here!" The woman had tears running down her eyes and she looked up to Reid. "I thought I was never going to get away from them!"

"Oh god, are you okay?" Cami yelled as they all rushed to the tree to help her.

"I'm fine, I ju-just need to get away from these thugs," The woman shuddered as Reid started to untie her. The ropes around her fell to the ground and she instantly hopped up and stretched, trying to get the feeling back in her limbs.

Reid noticed the woman stood about as tall as he did, had bright blonde hair, hypnotizingly deep blue eyes, and a bust that put Cami's to shame. Reid hit himself for noticing that last part and put his mind back into motion.

"So," Cami barged in as the woman continued to stretch "What's your name and why were you tied up here?"

"My name is Dianne. I work for the Devon Corporation and those Magma thugs jumped me a couple days ago just outside the Devon HQ. They've been leading me all over the forest trying to get intel out of me for a project I'm currently working on."

"What's so important that you'd be kidnapped for it?" Wally asked.

"Well, I'm lead developer of the master ball, and I'm sure they wanted some kind of information about that out of me."

Everybody's jaw dropped to the ground. The woman in front of them was the reason that the master balls even existed. The most powerful of all pokeballs that could catch any pokemon without fail. It was rumored that it could even catch legendary pokemon too. This woman was responsible for that kind of power.

"Are-are you all okay?"

Reid was the first to break out of the trance-like state that they all seemed to be in. "Uh, yeah we're good. So, I'm assuming you want to leave here right?"

Dianne replied with a simple nod.

"Well, then let's get out of here," Reid motioned towards the exit of the clearing and they all made their way back to the Magma camp. As they walked back through the camp, the unconscious bodies of the Magma members and their pokemon laid still in the same places as before. They quickly left the area and made their way back to their campsite and hastily packed up their gear and got to the trail. Thankfully the extra set of hands sort of sped things up and they were back on the road to Rustboro. Granted, they now probably had a target on their backs.

* * *

"So you're telling me that you failed to guard the V.I.P. for a couple more hours? You managed to evade capture from the Rustboro police, yet you lost her to a handful of CHILDREN?!" The Magma admin glared down at the five Magma grunts that were on their knees in front of him. He took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled with an audible sigh. "Who is the leader of this sector?"

The beaten and bruised Magma members pointed over to Rokko who hung his head in shame.

"What's your name?"

"Sir, my name is Rokko!" He stood up as straight as he could, giving a quick salute to the Magma admin in front of him. Sweat trickled down his cheeks as the admin looked him over without saying any words.

"Hmm...So tell me Rokko, why did you let Dianne Marshall escape?" The Magma Admin asked as he leaned closer towards Rokko.

Rokko took a step back. The man in front of him, even though he was only slightly taller than him, gave off the most intense aura he'd ever felt. It wasn't that he was physically intimidating, actually it was far from that. He didn't know why, but it was like he was an Arbok that was slowly wrapping him and choking the life out of him.

"I-uhh-"

"Did you just, let those children take her?" The admin took a gaze around the camp, looking around at the destruction with a sarcastic glance.

"No not at all! It's just they-"

"They beat you up?"

"Well, uhh…"

"Well come on, spit it out already! I'm _dying_ to know!"

"They jumped us!"

The admin facepalmed himself. This was ridiculous...really, a group of five trained individuals with relatively well trained pokemon were jumped; and by children no less! This is the kind of crap he expected to hear from a child complaining about being bullied by others...not by his own god damn Mamga members.

"Please tell me you are just joking around."

"I-"

"Shhh...no words," The admin looked back to Rokko. He slowly lifted his cloak up, revealing a large pistol that was in a just as large holster. Rokko's face went pale and the life left his eyes as he looked back between the gun and the admin. "Now this," the admin teased as he pulled out the handgun "is my baby. Tell me Rokko, have you ever seen a gun quite like this?"

Rokko slowly gazed over the weapon that was just a couple feet from his face. It was no normal handgun though. He was gazing at a dual barreled nine millimeter pistol, and both the barrels were aimed straight at his head.

"Now, the bullets in this are quite expensive. They were specially designed by Team Plasma a few years ago before their group took a dive. They are armor piercing and shoot through police kevlar like butter and are very efficient when they go through...unprotected objects."

Rokko let out an audible gulp as the magma admin continued to flounder about with his special gun.

"Tell me Rokko, after all I just told you about these bullets, how much do you think they cost per bullet?"

Rokko didn't answer. The only sounds that crept out in between his heavy breathing were a couple whimpers.

"Well each shot is around five hundred ref. So because I _really_ don't want to waste one thousand ref on blowing off your head, I'm going to give you one and only one chance to get Dianne Marshall back. Do I make myself clear?"

 _ **Author's note:**_

 _What's it been like three months now? Four? Geez I'm sorry all. I wrote this off and on over the past few months and have been kicking myself quite hard recently for not getting it done. I've just had a lot of drama going on at home, and I've lost my muse...then found it...then lost it again...but hey I've got it back now at least! I'm sorry for the lack of updates, especially on AJOH, and I hope to get the next chapter out very soon. Tell me what you guys think in the comments! I read all of them and each one is so nice to read, even if they do say I write like shit. I still appreciate it. Thank you all for you support. You guys are awesome :)_


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

"How badly do these guys want you Dianne?!" A burst of flames flew over Reid's head as he sprinted down the road. The gang was doing their best to keep up, but Team Magma was hot on their trail. They had been over the past two days. So far, they'd had only a couple hours of sleep and the effects of it were more than evident. Dark circles under their eyes, lightheadedness, Reid had even thrown up at one point. All the side effects from their sleep deprivation was also being paired with the wounds they'd all gotten for various encounters with Team Magma members. Sia got more burns on top of his previous ones, Philly had been knocked out a couple times and was sure to have gotten a concussion. Worst of all, Zeit had gotten paralyzed from a stun spore attack and could hardly float anymore because of it. The funny thing about that was it wasn't even Team Magma that had done that. A wild shroomish did it when he floated over its head. So along with sore legs and whatever other status had been afflicted on all of them, needless to say they were tired.

They continued to huff as they ran down the gravel road. More fire attacks whizzed by as they took a bend around a corner in the path. Reid noticed that Wally and Cami weren't in front of him anymore, but noticed that they had turned and started running into the foliage to his right and he pulled Dianne in the direction the others were running. Wally and the others dove into a thick bush and Reid and Dianne followed. Everyone was basically in pile. A heaving, sweaty pile. They held their breath as they heard the squad of Magma members pass by. Once they couldn't hear the sounds of boots on gravel, they got out of the bush and sat in a group behind it.

"Can we," Cami coughed, spitting out a leaf from bush, "can we take a minute breather?"

"I agree," Wally heaved as he collapsed backwards. "My legs haven't hurt this much since,"

"EVER!" Cami yelled as she fell forward.

"You think Zeit's doing okay since he got paralyzed?" Reid asked as he glanced over Zeit's pokeball.

"He's fine," Cami wailed. "Please just pass me some water."

Reid opened his pack as he placed Zeit's ball back on his belt. As he took out his bottle, he noticed that he only had about a third left. He offered it to her anyway. The pain of being thirsty wasn't as bad as a Cami that had something to complain about. She gratefully took the bottle and chugged every last drop. Wally was doing the same with his bottle, offering the last of it to Dianne after he'd had his fill.

"How much longer until we make it to Rustboro?" Cami gulped as she handed Reid back his bottle.

"It should be like, a few hours at most," Wally said as he sat back up. "Considering we ran a lot these past couple nights, we've definitely closed a lot of distance."

"And what time is it?" Reid asked as Wally checked his watch.

"Five thirteen."

"God why's it gotta be so early?!" Cami complained.

"Relax, we're not that far away. So when we make it to Rustboro in these next couple hours, then where should we take you Dianne?"

"I've got to get out of the region, it's not safe for me here. So the airport is where I need to go. It should be safe enough there anyway with all the security they have. Those Magma grunts wouldn't dare make a move there."

"If you say so," Cami grunted as she laid back.

"Get up, we can't sleep now," Reid complained but with no response. "Cami…"

Wally leaned over and prodded her. He looked back to Reid, "She's out cold man."

Reid sighed as he leaned back, "She at least didn't crush the eggs did she?"

Wally checked back at her again and shook his head. Well that was a relief.

"Alright, twenty minutes of rest. I'll keep an eye on things around here. Sia should be strong enough to fight if it comes to that. You guys get some sleep."

Dianne had no objections as she took off her coat and used it as a makeshift pillow. Wally glanced over to Reid and he gave an approving nod. Accepting Reid's offer, Wally laid down against a tree and instantly fell into a deep sleep.

Reid took out Sia's ball and released him. Sia was instantly in a defensive state and had a faint aura surrounding him.

"Relax, we're just keeping guard. Team Magma passed by us."

Sia eased himself a bit hearing that. He looked over the group of people that were asleep and back to Reid.

"Why aren't you sleeping?"

"Cause I'm keeping guard. That's why."

"But you look so tired. Let me keep guard for you."

"Yeah that's not happening," Reid laughed as he pulled Sia into his lap. "Somebody's gotta be awake to boss you around.

Sia playfully slapped Reid with his tail, but immediately regretted doing so. The pain from burns shot through his body. Reid rubbed his back trying to help Sia through the pain.

"We'll get that healed up as soon as we get to Rustboro okay?" He nodded gratefully as he layed back in Reid's lap.

"So how long are you gonna let them sleep?"

"An hour. I told them twenty minutes but they really need it."

"How long till we get to Rustboro?"

"Wally thinks it should only be a couple hours until we get there.

"Oh thank goodness" Sia sighed obviously relieved from the statement.

"Yeah. You can sleep some more if you want. I'll wake you if something happens."

"I can stay awake. I want to hear about some of the things that have happened so far. How have Zeit and Philly been doing through this?"

"Well," Reid rubbed the back of his head and looked over Zeit's ball, "Zeit got paralyzed from a Shroomish and We think Philly has a concussion."

"Geez, what happened to Philly?"

"He got hit in the head by a dark pulse attack. He started saying a lot of weird stuff after we got away from them. He was tipsy too, so that's probably not a good sign either."

"Yeesh."

"I couldn't word it any better than that."

They sat around for awhile, not saying anything. After a couple minutes Sia had fallen asleep but Reid wasn't going to do anything about it. He needed just as much sleep as Cami or Wally did. Even if he was sleeping in his pokeball, he needed him to be as strong as he could be in case something went down. And going back on the past couple days. It was probably likely that they were going to get attacked again. It was all very tiring. And hurting. Everything was so sore. Why was everything turning black?

Reid jolted up though when he heard the sound of boots crunching gravel. Sia was awake too and instantly knew what was going on. They held their breath as the people just a dozen feet away were having a conversation.

"You have any luck finding her?"

"None. It's like she just disappeared."

Two men. It was obvious who they were talking about too. They were talking about Dianne. Reid's arm started to heat up and noticed Sia was forming an aura around him again.

"If you see or hear anything, report back to me. Admin Omar wants any info on this situation."

"Roger."

The two men walked off again, the crunching of gravel grew more distant until it was silent again.

"That was close," Sia exhaled.

"No kidding. I thought Wally's snoring was going to give us away."

They both glanced over to Wally, who on que let out a massive snore almost to acknowledge what they'd said. Sia and Reid both both chuckled, lightening the already dreadful mood a bit. Cami groaned a bit and turned in her sleep. They both covered their mouths and let out as many silent snickers as they could. It was nice to have a laugh like that, especially in these past couple days. It was something they needed.

"So how long was I out?" Sia asked as he turned back to Reid.

"I think like an hour or so? I don't have a watch so I'm just shooting in the dark."

"You let me sleep for an hour?!"

"Yeah, now go wake up the others. I can barely feel my legs."

Sia slugged up and walked over to the others and started prodding around. Dianne woke up instantly once Sia poked her. Wally took a second to get up, but Cami was the worst. It took Reid yelling into her ear for her to even start to wake up. It was an uphill battle of one eyelid at a time.

Wally glanced down to his watch and noticed what time it was. He angrily walked over to Reid, and shoved his watch into Reid's face. Reid let out a chuckle and pushed Wally to the side as he gathered his things.

"So a couple more hours right?"

"Yup," Wally answered as he wiped some dirt off his pants.

"Are we going to run?" Cami whined as they they started to push out of the foliage.

"No," Reid answered to her relief. "We heard the squad move back up the path about ten minutes ago, so they've lost our trail.

"Thank god. My legs are so sore."

"And I'm tired," Reid countered, "Now let's get a move on."

The group started to walk down the path again but they were feeling a bit more at ease. Everyone except Sia though, who seemed to be very tense.

"Hey Sia, you want to go back into your pokeball?" Reid asked only to get a shake in response.

It was fairly silent for a good chunk of time, the only sounds were those that were coming from the forest around them. A couple pokemon shouted their cries, trees were rustling in the breeze, and there was even the distant sound of a creek trickling. It was all so, tranquil. For some odd reason though, Reid couldn't shake the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

* * *

"WE'RE FREE!" Cami yelled as they broke through the treeline with Rustboro in visible sight. Reid's smile was so wide at this point, he felt like a kid on christmas morning. Everybody took off running in the direction of the city. The airport was even within sight too. It was such a lovely sight it was. Heck, even Wally had shed a tear at the sight of the airport.

In only a matter of minutes, they were at the front doors of the airport. A few people were giving them odd looks, like they were crazy or something, but they didn't know what they had all gone through in the last couple days. They burst through the doors and were all hit with a blast of ice cold air that felt so unbelievably good after being a sweaty mess for so long.

"Are you folks alright?!"

Reid looked up to see one of the airport's security guards had come to their side. "We're a bit worn to say the least," Reid laughed as he leaned up against a wall

"Hey kid, you doing okay?"

"I could use some water," Reid laughed as he slid down the airport wall with his vision starting to fade, "I could go for a nap too." A crowd started to form around him and his friends. More airport security was coming their way, as well as more people. Some woman with bright red hair was patting him, asking him questions, but none of her words registered. He could only make out the cries of the people around him as his vision faded to black.

* * *

"So, I see you've failed to capture Dianne and the," The Magma admin took another deep breath as he stared over the squad of Magma members lead by Rokko, " _children_."

"Sir there's still a chance they're hiding out in the forest!"

"Oh really? So why's it that I heard on the police scanner that there's a group of three children who were found at the Rustboro airport with FUCKING DIANNE MARSHAL!"

"I-I"

"You failed is what you did." The Magma admin pulled out his pistol and shoved it against Rokko's face. "You got any family Rokko?"

"Ga-"

"Cause I'm gonna kill em' and put them in the same grave as you!"

A gunshot rang out through the forest and Rokko fell to the ground.

* * *

Reid's eyes flickered open to a blinding white light. And beeping. What was with this beeping? It was really damn annoying to be honest. Reid struggled up and looked around the room. Why the heck was he in a hospital bed?

"So you're finally awake?"

"Wha-" Reid looked over to where the voice had come from across the room. A slightly chunky, older man with white hair and an equally white lab coat approached him.

"You've been out for quite some time young man. Now tell me why is it that you were delivered to me half dead?"

"I was dying?!" The man chuckled at his remarks as he walked over to Reid's bed.

"Well, you were very dehydrated and were so sleep deprived that you've been unconscious for-" The man rolled up his coat and glanced at his watch "Let's just say you've been out for about a day now."

"It's Saturday?"

"One A.M. Saturday morning, yes."

Reid started to get up, grunting as his stiff muscles screamed from every area of his body. His head started pounding and Reid rubbed it, trying to ease some of the pain. The man in white was ahead of the game and passed Reid a tray that had multiple bottles of pills and a large bottle of water. Where he'd pulled it from was a mystery.

"Tylenol, antibiotics, and a few others for the extreme dehydration you had."

Reid just nodded, took the pills that were handed to him, and chugged what was probably a liter of water.

"I'll write how and when you need to take these pills. They are to be taken at certain periods of the day. And that must be done daily for the next week or so. Got it?"

Reid nodded and continued to drain the bottle of all its fluids.

"So, back to this mornings burning question," Reid looked back over to the man, "why were you in the shape you were in?"

Reid took the bottle out of his mouth and placed it on the tray next to his bedside. "Well, let's just say I've spent the last two days doing nothing but run."

"And you've been running with a stump like that?"

Reid looked down to his stump and noticed that there was weird spots and it was slightly darker than the skin around his leg.

"The hell is-"

"It's a mild form of trench foot. I've only ever seen it once before in my entire career. You sweated so much these past couple days that you've actually given yourself trench foot."

"Son of a- is it bad?"

"Like I said it's only mild. Just take these antibiotics, and avoid doing excessive amounts of exercise and you'll be fine."

Reid let out a sigh of relief and fell back into his bed. "By the way, how are my friends doing?"

The doctor chuckled a bit and sat in the chair next to Reid's bed. "Well that green haired fellow is fine. We just gave him some water and he passed out on the couch outside your room. As for your girlfriend, she had a serious case of sleep deprivation and is still sleeping in one of the rooms on this level."

"Okay one, not my girlfriend. Two, is she okay? She's not hurt or anything?"

"Just need a lot of sleep like you did. I think she should be waking up anytime now."

"What about my pokemon?"

"They were put into immediate care upon arrival. I think that Ralts had it the worst though. He has a pretty severe concussion."

"We thought he did. He's not too hurt is he?"

"He'll be a bit tipsy these next couple days, but other than that he'll recover fine."

"That's a relief. What about the eggs? They aren't damaged are they?"

"They're in pristine condition."

Another sigh of relief. There was just one more person to take into account. "And Dianne? Did she make it out okay?"

"Ah yes, Ms. Marshall left earlier yesterday. She called the hospital to pass on the message that she was headed to Kalos and that she was alright."

"Thank goodness," Reid crashed back into his bed "Now what about me? Am I okay, other than my le-stump?"

"Your stump will be fine. Don't worry about it too much. Oh, but I'll tell you that it will hurt quite badly once those painkillers wear off. But you can always take more pills so don't worry. Just don't overdose. Just two tablets every six hours you hear?"

Reid nodded and looked around the room a bit more. "Other than that though, I'm fine?"

"Good enough health to do whatever you want. Again though, I stress not doing any extreme exercise."

"You don't have to worry about doing it," Reid laughed as he got up again and started to get out of his bed. It was then he noticed he didn't have any of his clothes on aside from the hospital gown that had a very drafty back side. "Uhh-"

"Why don't I bring you a change of clothes?" The doctor laughed as he got up and walked out the door leaving Reid alone. Reid looked around the room he'd woken up in. It looked just like the room he'd woken up last time when his leg had...yeah... Looking around a bit more he noticed a painting was on the wall. It was just some painting of pokemon playing around in a brook, but it was cute.

There was a knock at the door and the doctor entered holding Reid's backpack. "Now I haven't gone through your things but I do believe that, being a trainer you have at least one set of clothes to change into."

Reid nodded and the man handed over his backpack. Reid sat back down on the hospital bed and removed his prosthetic. The bumps on his stump gave him another shiver of displeasure. He opened his bag and pulled out a new jacket. It essentially the same as the last one, only this time it was a scarlet and silver instead of dark gray. He'd actually been meaning to wear it lately. Other than that it was the same as before. Blue jeans, gray t-shirt, black socks, and scarlet boxers.

Reid struggled into his jeans as he had been for the past week. That was one of the things he was still trying to get used to after losing his leg. He had to admit, out all the things he'd taken for granted with having his leg, putting on clothes easily sure was something that hadn't ever come to mind. After he'd changed into the rest of his clothes, he packed up the pills he'd been given, handed the hospital gown back to the doctor and made his way to the door of his room.

"So hey, where are my pokemon at?"

"If you head down the hallway, and down the staircase at the right, the pokemon center is right there."

"So this is a combined hospital then?"

"Correct."

"Well isn't that handy."

Reid waved the doctor off and walked out the door. Much to his surprise, Wally was asleep in a chair just outside the room.

"The doc wasn't lying was he?" Reid chuckled as he made his way over to Wally. "Hey Wally, wake up man."

Wally groaned and turned in the chair. Reid let out a sigh and slugged Wally's shoulder and he jolted awake.

"Wha?!"

Wally looked around the hall and noticed Reid standing above him with a smug grin.

"Well looks like somebody's feeling better."

"Yeah, I guess I just needed some sleep. By the way, I heard Philly had a pretty bad concussion. Is he doing okay?"

Wally eyed the ground and didn't speak. The answer to that question was probably a no.

"It's something they said might be permanent, but they don't know right now."

"Don't worry, Philly will be fine. He always is."

"Yeah."

"Hey, what are you guys talking about?"

They both turned and looked down the hallway to see Cami was walking their way. She was thankfully wearing her usual clothes and not that hospital gown that exposed so much. Reid didn't think he could handle something like that.

"Oh hey Cami," Wally waved as she walked over to them. She gently set her backpack against the wall, the eggs still carefully wrapped in clothes and blankets. "You feeling better?"

"Like I could take on an army!" She hopped around and started throwing punches at fake targets.

Reid looked over to Wally who gave him the same look of confusion.

"Well anyways," Reid spoke up grabbing Cami's attention, "It's Saturday morning, and that means we only have one day to train with our pokemon before the tournament starts. What do you guys want to do?"

"I don't have any pokemon so I guess I'm useless." Cami groaned.

"Well that's not true," Wally grabbed Cami's attention, "Just use Zeit and battle against Sia. It'd be like if you had your own pokemon. It'd be good practice you know."

"What about Zeit's ball though?" Cami asked.

"We'll just have Reid set it to zero and tell Zeit to listen to you. Easy as that."

Cami just nodded in agreement. "Sounds good to me. Reid, are you cool with that?"

"Yeah it's not a problem. Zeit may be a different story, but I bet he'd be excited to battle somebody that isn't a Magma goon. But, my main question is how are we going to do any of that right now? It's one in the morning."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that," Wally stopped and thought for a minute, "I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there?"

Reid let out a deep sigh and started walking down the hallway towards the pokemon section of the hospital. Cami and Wally grabbed their things and caught up with Reid as he started to climb down the stairs in the way the doctor had said too. After walking down another long hallway, they found the reception desk to the pokemon portion of the hospital.

The woman behind the desk looked up, noticing the gang was approaching her desk. "Welcome to the Rustboro City Pokemon Center. Are you checking in your pokemon or withdrawing them?"

"We all have some pokemon to pick up," Wally spoke as he leaned on the counter. "I'm here to pick up my Ralts and Reid is here to pick up his Treecko and Beldum."

"Alright then, please show me your trainer ID's and I'll go retrieve them."

Reid and Wally both handed the woman their ID's. Once she'd scanned them and confirmed which pokemon to get, she got up and went into one of the doors that was behind her desk. After a few silent minutes of waiting, the woman came back carrying a tray with three pokeballs on it. Wally grabbed Philly's ball and Reid grabbed the remaining two. They waved goodbye to the receptionist and headed for the front door of the hospital.

They walked a bit down the hall before Reid and Wally let out Sia, Zeit, and Philly. They all burst onto the hospital floor in a burst of white light. Sia appeared with a happy grin that rivaled Philly's. Zeit was silent, but bobbed around in his typical manner.

Philly hopped onto Wally's shoulder, with a bit of stumble in his move though. That was something that they'd all have to keep an eye on. Sia happily jumped into Reid's arms, and began to crawl around him like the day they'd met. Reid noticed that Sia had a lot of scars along his body and a lot of mismatched colors on his tail. Reid assumed the burns from the past couple days and the lack of proper treatment were probably the cause. Although Sia didn't seem too bothered by it, it was definitely something that Reid felt guilty about.

"So, how was your guy's sleep?" Sia asked as he perched up on Reid's shoulder.

"A day of sleep was definitely what I needed," Cami laughed as she leaned against Zeit, who easily supported her weight.

"I definitely needed it," Wally chuckled as Philly continued to climb around on his shoulders. It was more of a worried chuckle as Philly struggled in some parts of the maneuvers, but it was nice to see him in better shape. Well, better shape than the days prior.

"How about you Zeit?" Reid asked, grabbing the attention of the armrest across the hall. "You get your movement back after that stun spore?"

"Most if not all of it. I am in near perfect condition."

"Great to hear buddy," Reid smiled as he looked back up to Sia who, like usual, was messing up his hair. "So you guys think you're up to do some actual training?"

Both of their heads turned at the mention of those words. Zeit so much so that Cami had actually lost her balance and nearly fell over. Excitement was beaming out of Sia's eyes, but the same couldn't be said for Zeit who seemed to be a bit nervous at the idea of it.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Reid smiled getting a better look from Zeit.

"I shall fight if it's what's needed of me."

Reid gave a nod to him. It wasn't exactly the answer he was looking for, but he'd take it. They needed to train since the tournament was a little more than twenty-four hours away. Aside from the occasional wild encounters that they'd had along the way to Rustboro, they hadn't actually had much official training time.

"I'm ready to fight too!"

The group looked over to Philly, who was getting riled up on Wally's head. They all gave concerned looks but it was Wally who took initiative.

"Philly, you can't. You've got a concussion and you need to heal for a bit okay?"

Philly didn't take too kindly to that and began lightly beating against Wally's head.

"You said we would be in the tournament!"

"Philly see what you're doing? You wouldn't normally do this. You never throw fits. You have to heal for the next couple of days okay?"

Philly instantly realized what was going on and hung his head in shame as he sat down onto Wally's shoulder, obviously depressed about the situation.

"Don't feel down buddy, we're gonna beat Roxane remember? Just you and me!"

That seemed to cheer him up a bit. At least they wouldn't have to deal with a depressed pokemon at the moment.

"So back to the idea of training, with it being one in the morning and all, where should we go to practice? I'm sure all the practice fields are closed at this time of night," Wally asked.

Everyone silently thought for a few moments before Cami got up and headed back to the pokemon center section of the hospital.

"Hey Cami, where are you-"

"Back to the receptionist Reid. I'm sure if anybody knows where we could go, it'd be her."

Reid and Wally exchanged glances as Cami walked off, but it did make some sense so they followed her back to the receptionist. They all reentered the waiting room and headed for the receptionist's desk.

The woman behind the desk looked up from her computer noticing that the group from earlier was approaching her.

"Is there something else I can help you with?"

"Yeah," Cami answered as she walked up to the desk, "do you have any idea where a practice area would be open at this time?"

The woman though for a bit, typed something into her computer and looked back to the group.

"The only place I know of that has any open training area's would be the airports. It's not too far from here either. If you take a taxi you'll be there in five minutes tops."

"Sounds great, thanks." With that Cami grabbed the guys' arm and drug them out of the room.

"Cami," Reid grunted as he shook free from her grip, "I can walk you know!"

"I know, but you walk too slow." She let go of both the guys who both rubbed their arms, trying to regain some feeling in them. "Oh don't be such drama queens. Get up here!"

They both raced up to Cami, tense to try and avoid any other dragging situation. It was then Cami shoved open the doors of the hospital and they all burst outside. It was fairly cool, but then again it was one and there was no sun to speak of. That didn't mean it was dark though, far from it actually. The city streets were lit up like a christmas tree. Many of the surrounding skyscrapers had dozens of lights beaming from different rooms. Street lights and neon were everywhere and lit the sidewalks in various shades of bright colors. A couple dozen cars were driving down the roads, some of them being fancy new models. There were even a good chunk of people walking around.

"Seems pretty busy for one in the morning." Wally gazed, taking in the scenes.

"Well, Rustboro is the city that never sleeps," Reid laughed.

"Hey we've got a goal in mind you two," Cami barked grabbing the two's attention. Philly, Sia, and Zeit continued to take in the scenes though. They didn't really have much to worry about in the case of Cami at this point. "Now flag down a taxi so we can go practice."

Wally and Reid both gave a confused look to each other. Reid had never signaled for a taxi and he didn't think that Wally had either. So Reid did the only thing he knew about signaling a taxi and stuck his thumb up and started yelling at the top of his lungs. It was both embarrassing and humiliating, but finally after a minute of yelling, a solid black taxi pulled up along the curb. Reid recalled Zeit and Sia while Wally just held onto Philly and they all piled in.

"So where you kids headed to this early in the morning?" The man in front asked as he turned to face the group.

"Rustboro Interregional," Cami answered as the man nodded and pulled back into the street.

"So what are you all doing up so early?" The man asked as he drove down the road.

The group looked at each other, wondering what they should say to their driver.

"We were uh-," Wally stuttered as he tried to think of something to say.

"Picking up our pokemon who just got done being healed." Cami barged in.

Well that wasn't the whole truth, but it was enough to satisfy the driver. The rest of the drive back to the airport was uneventful. Nobody really talked and the drive himself seemed fairly reserved. Not that Reid or anybody else was complaining. A few minutes passed by and they finally arrived at the airport. The driver looked at his watch and counted up the fare which came out to ten ref, which Wally ended up paying for.

They walked to the entrance and the front doors automatically opened. As they walked in they were all hit with a fairly strong blast of cold air. A few other people were hanging around the entrance as well. Most of them had suitcases and were talking on cell phones. They all started walking down the long hallway towards an information counter where a middle aged woman was sitting behind a counter, reading a magazine.

"Umm, excuse me," Wally asked grabbing the woman's attention.

"Yes?" She looked up from her magazine, slightly annoyed.

"Where are your guy's practice rooms at?"

The woman pointed to the right, down a long hallway. They all thanked her, whether she had deserved it or not, and headed down the next hallway. It was a long walk down the hall seeing as how the practice rooms were all the way down the hallway. That was a nice thing though, they all needed to stretch their legs again after the day long nap they'd all had. Finally they'd reached the practice rooms and walked into one of the three rooms. Inside they found a large, probably acre sized arena.

"Geez, this place is huge for being at an airport," Cami gasped as she looked around the arena.

"And to think there are two more of them," Wally laughed.

"Yeah it's pretty cool they have this," Reid said as he admired the room. As he looked around he noticed a sign next to them with a cart of collars. Reid split off from the group and inspected the sign and noticed the cart was filled with limiters. "Hey guys, I think we have to use these limiters over here," Reid shouted over to them. They came over to him and looked at the sign the confirmed what he'd said.

"Look here too," Wally pointed out, "It says we can only have two pokemon out at a time."

"Well that makes sense, they probably don't want some chaotic battle royale going on around at the airport," Cami stated. To be fair it was a good point.

"So who want's to go first?" Wally asked and everybody started eyeing each other.

"How about," Reid thought out loud, "How about I battle Cami. You can use Zeit and I'll use Sia."

"Sounds fine to me," Cami shrugged as she grabbed the pokeball from Reid's belt.

"Here why don't you let me explain it to him," Cami shrugged again as she tossed Zeit's ball back to Reid. Reid let out Zeit, who emerged in a flash of light on the ground. Well, in the ground. He was so heavy he'd slightly sunk into the dirt. Zeit opened his eye and started to hover up looking at the scene around him.

"Are we going to be training now master?"

"Oh my goodness-," Reid sighed, "Yes we are. Now this might be a bit confusing but I'm going to be giving orders to Sia, and you're going to be taking orders from Cami, okay?"

"Not a problem," Zeit answered as he started to hover around the group in usual fashion.

"Well that was easier than expected. Okay, so just listen to all of Cami's orders alright? Don't give her a hard time or anything okay?"

"Understood master."

"Please stop," Reid sighed as he reached for Sia's ball and released him. Sia appeared on the ground standing high, ready for the showdown. "Okay Sia, did you catch all of that?" Reid asked and Sia nodded as he hopped onto Reid's shoulder. "Alright. I guess that settles that. Oh wait, before I forget," Reid went to the limiter cart and pulled out two collars and placed got ready to place it on Sia. "Same deal as last time okay?"

"Go ahead," Sia braced himself as Reid put the collar on. Sia shook slightly as he adjusted to the collars limit.

Reid set Sia down and went over to Zeit, who was finishing the talk about what the collar was for. "You ready Zeit?"

"Yes ma- Reid, I am ready."

Reid grinned at the correction. Focusing back on the task at hand though, Reid strapped the collar onto Zeit, who immediately dropped into the ground. Reid jumped back just in time to not get his good foot crushed underneath the weight of Zeit. "Geez, Zeit are you okay?"

There was a faint, psychedelic groan that echoed throughout the arena, but Reid knew it was just Zeit adjusting to the limit the collar was having on him.

"I'm okay," Zeit groaned again. He did his best to hover again, and the group backed up away from him as to not get squashed by his weight.

"You sure?" Reid asked, and Zeit bobbed in acknowledgement.

"Alrighty then," Cami said as she pulled Zeit towards the back corner of the arena. "We'll tell you when we're ready!" She yelled back to Reid.

"She sure is charismatic," Wally laughed as he picked up Sia and handed him over to Reid.

"That's an understatement," Reid groaned as he placed Sia on his shoulder. "So hey Wally, we need you to ref for us, can you do that?"

"No prob man. Anyways, go kick Cami's butt. She doesn't have anything on you got that?"

"Strategy wise I think your right," Reid chuckled as he glanced over to the corner Cami and Zeit were huddled up in. They were clearly trying to make it look like they had a plan of action, but knowing her she'd probably just end up rushing in at him. "Alright Wally, Sia and I are going to our corner. Just give us a couple minutes and make sure to stay safe while the battle goes down."

"Sure thing man. You stay safe too man." With that Wally ran off towards the middle and Reid and Sia ran over to their side of the field. Once the got to their side, they huddled up and started talking strategy.

"So Sia, how much energy is that thing draining from you?"

Sia threw a few quick punches and looked back up to Reid, "A pretty good chunk. I'm much slower than I usually am."

"Then I'm guessing that Zeit is probably feeling the same." Reid looked back over at Cami and Zeit seeing that they were both still in a huddle. "Well, seeing as how Zeit can only use take down, you will probably have the edge."

"Plus I have a dark type move that's super effective against Zeit, so that will help."

"Yeah, that too."

"Heeeeey!" They both looked up from their group and noticed that Cami was waving her arms back and forth, quite dramatically too. "You guys done yet?"

"Shut up, we've been waiting on you!" Reid yelled which seemed to anger her.

"We've been done for five minutes now! Get your ass in gear!" Cami shouted with a raised fist.

Reid deadpanned and looked back to Sia who was laughing up a storm.

"So, you ready?" Reid asked as Sia hopped onto the battlefield.

Sia glanced back, a confident grin taking over his face, "More than ever!"

Reid looked back to Cami across the arena who was tapping her foot impatiently.

"Ready when you are!" Reid shouted. Cami waved him off and looked over to Wally who was standing near the entrance of the arena.

"Start this match anytime now!" Cami yelled over to him.

"Alright then. On my mark you guys!" Wally shouted holding his arm up.

Every part of Reid's attention was focused on Cami and Zeit. He didn't think Cami really had anything planned out other than a bum rush at Sia. Even though that was all Zeit could do at this point in his life, he couldn't help but feel like she had something up her sleeve. Cami had a look to match as well. Everything from her evil smile to the confident aura surrounding her showed him she had something planned. Whatever it was, he knew th-

"Begin!"

"Zeit, take down!" Cami shouted and Zeit boomed across the field.

Even with the limiter zeit still closed the distance between Sia in just a couple seconds. Sia had somehow managed to dodge out of the way of Zeit's attack. Zeit though, had a hard time stopping his attack and bulleted past Reid shot right into the wall, embedding himself in it.

Everybody's eyes locked onto Zeit's motionless body as he laid still in the wall.

Reid slowly walked over to where his pokemon was at in the wall. Zeit made no attempt at all to get out of the wall and Reid could only hear low psychedelic groan as he approached him.

"Zeit, buddy you okay?" Reid asked as he planted a hand on his back.

"Master please," Zeit groaned as he slowly started to slide out of the wall, "Just get this chapter posted soon."

Zeit plopped onto the ground, sinking into the dirt once again. Reid noticed at the front of his body there was a fairly large dent. A dent that could not be healthy for him. Not that his ramblings were something healthy either, but that would be brought up some other time.

"Hey umm, I think we should postpone this," Reid shouted as he returned Zeit to his pokeball.

Cami and Wally were both quickly on his side of the field and rushed over to him.

"Is Zeit okay?" Cami asked, clearly worried about Zeit.

"He's got a big dent in him. Definitely is going to need a visit to the pokemon center," Reid let out a sigh as he placed Zeit's ball back on his belt. "What exactly was your plan there?" Reid asked with a raised tone.

"Bum rush," Cami blushed as she rubbed the back of her head.

"Christ...I knew I was overthinking this whole thing."

Reid looked back at the exit of the arena and started walking towards it.

"Hey, where are you going?" Cami asked, only getting an annoyed scowl in reply.

"Reid," Wally called out yet again grabbing his attention, "Okay so umm, I can tell you're fairly annoyed by all this."

"And?" Reid asked somewhat impatiently as the others caught up with him.

"Well if you want, we can take Zeit back and you can stay and train with Sia."

Reid thought it over as Sia rejoined them.

"We do need to train Reid," Sia said as he hopped onto Reid. "The tournament is tomorrow you know."

"Yeah I know Sia," Reid groaned as he pushed Sia's paws out of his hair. "I guess we could stay for a little while and meet up with you guys a bit after we train."

"Sound like a plan," Wally said as he took the pokeball Reid handed him.

"Just make sure he doesn't flip out or something whenever you let him out okay? He was rambling again."

"What was it this time?" Cami asked as she twiddled her fingers.

"Getting a chapter posted. Whatever the hell that means."

"Does your pokemon have an obsession with writing or something?"

"You're asking the wrong guy Wally."

Wally shrugged as he and Cami walked out of the arena leaving just Reid and Sia alone.

"So how are we going to train?" Sia asked as he pulled at Reid's hair.

"No freaking clue man," Reid sighed taking a look around the arena. "Nothing to train with or against."

Reid thought about it for a little while, only to be pulled out of his train of thought by the tug of Sia pulling at his hair.

"Ow, dude c'mon not so hard."

"Sorry. You think of anything yet?"

"Dude I got nothing."

Sia was silent for a few moments, clearly with something on his mind. "You want to fight me?"

"Eh?"

"I can just fight you. I'll hold back my attacks if you want me to."

Reid chuckled as he patted Sia's tail, "I'd rather not end up like Zeit, Sia."

"Point made."

They both looked around the arena in silence, nothing really to do and no way to practice. Reid wasn't exactly sure what Wally and Cami had had in mind for him and Sia to do really.

"Hey Sia," Reid called up grabbing his attention, "You want to go get something to drink?"

"That sounds great," Sia nodded as they both started to walk about the airport.

As they continued to walk, Reid noticed there was a ridiculous amount of restaurants that were sheltered away throughout the hall. There were bars, fast food chains, even fancy sit down restaurants. One of the bars in particular stood out to him. It wasn't special in any way really, in fact it seemed sort of dull, but compared to the crazy colors and designs of all the other bars and restaurants the tameness was what was calling to him. He pulled out a stool and sat down in front of the bar.

"What'll it be?" The bartender asked him as he continued to polish a shot glass.

"Whiskey please."

The Bartender nodded and poured him a quick shot of Captain Briney.

"Hey, uh is your Treecko-"

"Yes, and it's a long story," Reid guy answered the guy next to him but Sia immediately reprimanded him with a slap on the head.

"Oh-I'm sorry for bothering y-"

"It's not a problem," Sia chirped getting a surprised look from the stranger. "We've just had a really long day is all,"

Reid took his drink and he downed it in one swift gulp. "That and I get that question a lot." Reid turned and extended his hand to the stranger. "Reid York. How's it goin?"

"Ash Ketchum. And it's been a long day for me too." Ash chuckled as he shook his hand.

Instantly, Reid's eyes widened and had a very serious look. He studied Ash over, looking at his hair, clothes, and then finally stopped at the pikachu on his shoulders. "Oh god you're Ash Ketchum."

 **AN: One year. It's been a whole god damned year. Jesus. So much has changed. My life has completely flipped upside down and rightside up in such a short amount of time that it'd be a chapter all its own. I could have had this out so long ago, it was 98% done for well over a year...I'm just glad to be back though. Sorry for the wait. More to come. I hope.**


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